An Phoblacht, January 2015

BUILDING AN ALTERNATIVE B I O N I C R A T S ICTU’s

DAVID BEGG NESSA CHILDERS

Ska kings

LOYALISTS OF LONG KESH

WHERE TO NOW?

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OF DUBLIN

Price €2 / £2

January / Eanáir 2015

FIGHT BACK RE AL CHANGE IS WITH SINN FÉIN

STORMONT HOUSE AGREEMENT

FINE GAEL & LABOUR PLAY FAST AND LOOSE WITH PEACE PROCESS

2 January / Eanáir 2015

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STORMONT HOUSE AGREEMENT

Fine Gael and Labour leaders’ roles in negotiations were reckless, disgraceful and partisan

For the Irish Government, it’s all about the elections, stupid

BY DECLAN KEARNEY

SINN FÉIN NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON ON Monday 29 December, the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle met in Dublin to discuss the recommendation from the party’s negotiations team that the Stormont House Agreement concluded in Belfast on 23 December (“the Eve of Christmas Eve”, as the media called it) be ratified by the national leadership.

It was a very detailed discussion on the context to the talks and their outcome. Sinn Féin entered these talks some 12 weeks ago to reach a comprehensive agreement on the political and financial challenges arising from the continued undermining of previous commitments since the Good

Tánaiste Joan Burton

Taoiseach Enda Kenny

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan

all-Ireland agenda, adherence to the Haass proposals, Irish Language Act (Acht na Gaeilge), Pat Finucane inquiry, and Maze/Long Kesh project were all set out as necessary and reasonable requirements – that is, they are already agreed.

These issues were and have been a litmus test of the Irish Government’s

What occurred was the worst form of car-crash diplomacy, with David Cameron in the driving seat and Enda Kenny as his front-seat passenger

Disgracefully, the Irish Government supported British Government intransigence Friday Agreement and also this British Conservative government’s attempts to impose catastrophic cutbacks on social welfare for the most disadvantaged in the North.

The Agreement made very important progress with regard to protecting the most vulnerable and delivering additional investment to the regional Northern economy. Important headway was also made in relation to dealing with the legacy of the past conflict; contentious parades; and flags, symbols and cultural identity.

However, the Agreement reached fell short of being comprehensive because the British Government refused to meet its obligations to hold an inquiry into the killing of lawyer Pat Finucane, legislate for an Irish Language Act or a Bill of Rights, or address other outstanding commitments.

Disgracefully, the Irish Government supported British intransigence on these positions. It did so despite its co-equal responsibility for guaranteeing

Junior Minister Seán Sherlock

5 Sinn Féin told Irish Government representatives that an opportunity for a comprehensive agreement should not be squandered

implementation of all previous agreements, and ignoring the advice of both Sinn Féin and the SDLP. Instead of standing alongside Northern nationalists and republicans, the Irish Government allowed its annoyance and political opposition to the growth of Sinn Féin across the island to dictate its approach towards the talks since October and the negotiation itself, which finally began on 17 December.

The clear evidence of that was revealed when both British Prime Minister David Cameron and An Taoiseach Enda Kenny arrived in Belfast on Thursday 11 December. What occurred then was the worst form of car-crash diplomacy, with Cameron in the driving

seat and Enda Kenny as his front-seat passenger.

After nearly ten weeks of talks, which at no stage had ever developed into real negotiations, the two leaders arrived to table a joint paper. Ironically, this could have potentially been the start of a negotiation but that was never the two governments’ intention.

Since late November, Sinn Féin had said all the indications pointed towards the ground being prepared for a predetermined British document with an Irish Government sign-off.

It was apparent for some time that a ‘take it or leave it’ paper was being drafted, the core of which would include the imposition of welfare cuts; increased austerity; fewer Executive departments

and fewer MLAs; as well as dilution of Haass compromise proposals on the past, parades and cultural identity; and no movement on outstanding issues from the Good Friday Agreement and other agreements.

Sinn Féin told Irish Government Minister Seán Sherlock and his key officials immediately before An Taoiseach came that a potential moment of opportunity did exist and that a comprehensive talks outcome should not be squandered with a setback.

They were reminded that wider community and republican confidence in the political process had been undermined and that national leadership was required from the Irish Government. Power-sharing, equality, the

determination to ensure the advance of national and democratic positions mandated in referendum: the British sought primacy for its own and unionism’s agenda.

The original joint paper on 11 December, agreed to by the Irish Government, supported the latter. By doing so it signed up to becoming a cheerleader for British Conservative austerity in the North and the rolling back of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Haass proposals last year offered a road map for political stability. Had the British Government and unionism agreed then, we would have been able to tackle our economic challenges from a better position. At that time, Sinn Féin compromised on all our positions regarding the past, parades, and identity and flags. So too did the SDLP and the Alliance Party.

One year on, the two governments’ paper decided that unionist rejection of the Haass proposals and compliance with British Conservative Party austerity policies should be its starting point.

Their paper was aimed at getting

January / Eanáir 2015

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3

5 Some of the Sinn Féin negotiation team that took part in the talks

5 As a result of Sinn Féin's work the Haass compromise proposals opposed by unionists and the British last year will now be implemented

Sinn Féin to compromise again on the very compromises which the party had already made during the Haass talks as a means to encourage unionism to ‘perhaps’ begin compromising.

The two governments’ joint strategy was about trying to jump-start a phony negotiation, in reverse gear. It did not work. So David Cameron walked out and went home on Friday 12 December.

Given this British administration’s track record, that type of stroke was no

The Irish Government allowed its annoyance and political opposition to the growth of Sinn Féin across the island to dictate its approach towards the talks surprise. Its focus is the Westminster elections this May and trying to keep the Democratic Unionist Party sweet.

But it was a disgrace for any Irish Government to play fast and loose with the political process.

The united position which the Irish Government adopted with the British meant it turned away from its commitments to the Barron Inquiry requirements on the Monaghan and Dublin bombings, the Pat Finucane inquiry, and the Ballymurphy Massacre independent panel.

That paper – which the Irish Government jointly authored – accepted the primacy of British national security interests over truth for Irish citizens.

The politics of this period have been eerily similar to the mid-1990s when the British Conservatives and Fine Gael were also in power.

Only when Sinn Féin said categorically that the mid-December joint paper was totally unacceptable, and a realisation dawned that the political situation had been made worse by the two governments’ actions, did a real negotiation commence on Wednesday 17 December.

The Irish Government was complicit in drafting a paper which represented a setback for Irish national and democratic interests, fundamentally compromising the rights of Irish citizens in the North, and breaking faith with the integrity of the Good Friday, Weston Park, St Andrew’s and Hillsborough Castle Agreements. It effectively sought to nationalise austerity by supporting the British Conservatives’ efforts to hurt the most weak and vulnerable in the North.

That is the context against which Sinn Féin and others had to negotiate.

Having been previously passive and semi-detached towards the North, this Fine Gael and Irish Labour Party coalition government’s new-found focus showed a reckless indifference towards the fate of the political process, and all because of their selfish electoral interests in the 26 Counties.

That narrow electoral agenda continued to dictate its approach to the negotiations which took place between Wednesday 17 December and Tuesday 22 December.

Sinn Féin negotiated hard to stop the exclusion by the British – with Irish Government acquiescence – of fundamental positions in the final “Heads of Agreement”, including issues such

5 The Irish Government put selfish electoral interests ahead of negotiations

as coroners’ courts, so important to families seeking truth and justice for their loved ones.

As a consequence of Sinn Féin’s work, supported by the SDLP, the Haass compromise proposals opposed last year by unionists and the British will now be implemented.

The Parades Commission will continue.

British national security interests will

The Irish Government signed up to becoming a cheerleader for British Conservative austerity in the North and the rolling back of the Good Friday Agreement

5 The agreement can be a catalyst for greater participation in politics

not be allowed to put a dead hand over the quest for truth and justice.

Coroners’ courts will be protected.

No welfare benefits under the control of the North’s Executive will be reduced.

A Civic Forum will be established.

Reforms to the political institutions will be introduced.

Progress on securing the Pat Finucane inquiry, the Irish Language Act, the Bill of Rights, and other outstanding matters could have been made had the Irish Government done the right thing and stood up for Irish national and democratic interests.

These issues and other campaigns must now be taken forward with renewed momentum by all strands of national, democratic and progressive opinion, and by Irish America.

The success and stability of peace and political processes in the North are paramount.

They are bigger than the Irish Government, individual parties, or any narrow political agendas.

They should never be subjugated to electoral self-interest. It is an absolute, national disgrace that this particular Irish Government chose to do just that.

The last period of political instability has confirmed what Sinn Féin warned about for years – that the Peace Process must not be taken for granted. No Irish government should ever be let play partisan politics with the Peace Process again.

What has happened underscores the importance of harnessing the increased European Parliament influence, which it has offered; and a more intensive engagement in the process by the British Labour Party.

A continued involvement by the

United States administration remains vital. The political expertise of Senator Gary Hart (Secretary of State John Kerry’s appointed envoy) was not utilised in this negotiation by the two governments. There is an essential role now for him to encourage full compliance with the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement.

If all sides are prepared to embrace the potential contained within the Agreement, including both

The Haass proposals last year offered a road map for political stability.

Had the British Government and unionism agreed then, we would have been able to tackle our economic challenges from a better position governments, it can serve as a road map for restoring political stability to the democratic process and political institutions in the North. It will assist in remodeling the regional economy whilst protecting the most vulnerable.

This Agreement, if implemented, can also be a catalyst for encouraging greater participation in democratic politics, opening a new phase of the Peace Process, and the emergence of authentic reconciliation at last.

SEE PAGE 5

4 January / Eanáir 2015

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE

7

‘Derry’s Springsteen’ talks to An Phoblacht

13

Integrated education – Chris Hazzard MLA responds to May Blood

14

Bliain nua mhaith? – Trevor Ó Clochartaigh

18 & 19

Uncomfortable Conversations Reverend Earl Storey and Dr Pat Walsh

22 & 23

Walter Macken – Time for Galway novelist to be recognised as one of Ireland’s greatest writers

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

A crucial year for republicanism 2015 is an important year for republicanism; it could of the conservative parties who have ruled the 26-County be crucial. Not only are there Westminster elections state since the 1920s or a genuine republican alternative happening in May but there will possibly be a snap that offers the prospect of radical political change.

Dáil election this year if the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition While the Centre Right realigns or re-emerges under doesn’t hang on until the last possible moment in 2016. new names or flags of convenience – trying to capitalise And, of course, 2016 marks the centenary of the 1916 on people’s discontent – they offer nothing Easter Rising. of substance in the way of radical change.

There has not been a more appropriate time Real change lies with Sinn Féin and the in Ireland’s recent history for a strong Sinn realignment it seeks of progressiveFéin to keep alive the ideals of the men and minded people across not just politics women of 1916 and to strive to achieve but community and campaign groups, the goals that people laid down trade unions and enterprise. their lives for in the Easter That’s the way forward for real Rising, in the years before, change, for effective change. and in the years since.

In the North, the most vulnerable have The Fine Gael/Labour been protected against Tory welfare and coalition has lost its Budget cuts. Progress has also been made mandate and now clings with regard to the issues of flags, the past to power, imposing policies and parading. that are alienating huge But much more needs to be done. The numbers of citizens. It stumbles British and Irish governments have failed from one political crisis to to deliver on commitments such as a Bill another. of Rights, Acht na Gaeilge, and an inquiry The over-riding theme of the into the killing of Pat Finucane and other Fine Gael/Labour coalition matters. has been a deeply unfair That said, the Stormont House Agreement economic policy and demonstrates that, with the five main some of the most parties acting together (and despite the Irish REAL regressive Budgets in the Government’s almost silent acquiescence to state’s history.

CHANGE British Tory diktats rather than asserting its place The imposition of as co-partners in the Good Friday Agreement IS WITH domestic water charges in the and successive international agreements on SINN FÉIN face of huge public opposition is the behalf of Irish citizens), significant progress can final straw for many. They have opened the floodgates be made to safeguard the most vulnerable and rebuild of a grassroots rebellion. In the year ahead, Sinn Féin the reputation of the political institutions. will continue to fight the water charges until they are In this new year, Sinn Féin will continue to work towards scrapped. a united Ireland and a New Republic which cherishes all Irish society faces a choice between the failed politics identities and puts the interests of citizens first.

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

NEWS newsdesk@anphoblacht.com NOTICES notices@anphoblacht.com PHOTOS photos@anphoblacht.com 26 & 27

40th anniversary of the killing of Volunteer John Francis Green

30

Between the Posts The case for Casement Park

SUBSCRIBE ONLINE To get your An Phoblacht delivered direct to your mobile device or computer for just €10 per 12 issues and access to the historic The Irish Volunteer newspaper posted online weekly and An Phoblacht’s/IRIS the republican magazine archives

AN PHOBLACHT is published monthly by Sinn Féin. The views in An Phoblacht are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sinn Féin. We welcome articles, opinions and photographs from new contributors but contact the Editor first.

An Phoblacht, Kevin Barry House, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100. Email: editor@anphoblacht.com

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Gerry Adams barred from Gaza by Israel as international recognition of Palestine gains momentum

Dáil passes unopposed Sinn Féin motion for Palestine IRELAND joined more than 130 countries when the Dáil passed unopposed a Sinn Féin motion in early December to recognise the state of Palestine.

A week later, on 17 December, Sinn Féin MEPs joined European Parliament colleagues in passing a similar motion by 498 votes to 88.

The votes followed a three-day visit by Gerry Adams to Palestine and Israel in the first week of December.

The Sinn Féin leader met senior political figures but was prevented by the Israeli Government from visiting Gaza. He had visited Gaza

in 2009 and published a detailed report and proposals on his return to Ireland.

On his most recent visit, Adams met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for an hour of talks in Ramallah and later Dr Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative. Earlier, he’d met Israeli Labour Party leader Isaac Herzog.

The Sinn Féin leader laid a wreath at the tomb of Yasser Arafat in an official ceremony with a Palestinian state guard of honour.

Commenting on the Israeli decision to deny him entry into Gaza,

Gerry Adams said that the purpose of his visit had been to listen.

“Primarily I am here to learn. When asked, I have also outlined the broad strategic approach Sinn Féin took to the Irish Peace Process.

“Central to our success has been the need for dialogue. But it also required participants to take risks for peace and to be prepared to try and understand other points of view.

“The Israeli decision is a reminder of the imperative of supporting the Palestinian efforts to secure UN and international recognition of the Palestinian state.”

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson, Chair of the European Union’s Delegation to the Palestinian Legislative Council, has criticised Israel’s “counter-productive” decision in January to withhold taxes from the Palestinian Authority after it applied to join the International Criminal Court.

“Israel fears what the International Criminal Court will uncover about its actions during last year’s onslaught in Gaza and that’s what has prompted this retrograde step,” Martina said.

SEE BACK PAGE

January / Eanáir 2015

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Stormont House Agreement – progress, not comprehensive

BY CIARÁN QUINN

progressive taxation policy. Westminster still retains powers on income tax, including tax credits.

THE AGREEMENT reached at Stormont Houes on 23 December (and endorsed by the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle on 29 December) represents progress on a number of fronts

5

‘There is no reduction in benefits within the control of the Assembly’

‘There is no reduction in benefits within the control of the Assembly’ Martin McGuinness **

[HEADLINE]

Martin McGuinness In addition to the Haass/O’Sullivan proposals, victims, North and South, will be able to access the truth recovery process.

Flags, identity, culture and tradition Similar to the Haass/O’Sullivan proposals, a commission will be established to report on these issues. Any report must be in the context of the previous agreements, including parity of esteem as guaranteed by the two governments.

The resolution of the issue of identity will require action at a community, political and national level to build an inclusive and equal society. The agreed commission is only one part of the wider process that is required.

There is agreement in principle on a reduction in the number of MLAs by 2021 and reduction to the number of departments by 2016. This is subject to legislation and requires cross-community support.

Finance and welfare payments When Enda Kenny and David Cameron walked away from the talks on 12 December the media were briefed that this was a ‘take it or leave it’ offer, that no further changes would be made.

The response by the Sinn Féin negotiators was to build a consensus across the parties that the finance package fell well short of what was required.

All of the parties, acting together, were able to increase the financial package that would offset the changes to welfare and provide for additional investment in of up to £500million in shared education over a 10-year period.

The Agreement provides that there will be: • No reductions in welfare payments under the control of the Executive.

• No increase in welfare sanctions.

• Removal of enabling clauses, which would be a gateway for future Londonled changes.

• Retention of anti-poverty measures associated with delivery.

• Mitigation measures for benefits not within control of the Executive.

With regard to welfare payment Martin McGuiness made it clear: “We agreed a welfare protection package for the most vulnerable people in our society to ensure there is no reduction in benefits within the control of the Assembly.”

These proposals will be in effect over the next six years and then reviewed.

The financial package also includes additional investment and flexibility with regard to loans and budgetary commitments. On top of this is the possibility of additional powers to vary taxation, including Corporation Tax. This access to additional funds and powers will provide the Executive with a greater ability to plan and grow the economy.

It falls short of the full suite of powers that would benefit the Executive and allow for a fully

Parades The Parades Commission remains the regulatory body and will remain so for some time to come.

In a situation similar to that which obtained at the conclusion of the Hillsborough Agreement, the parties are committed to look at the regulation of parades afresh. Any conclusion to this review would require cross-community agreement in the Assembly.

Outstanding commitments This comprises a range of commitments made in the Good Friday Agreement, Weston Park and St Andrew’s. These are commitments made by the two governments that they have failed to implement.

The ongoing refusal of the British Government to hold an inquiry into the murder of Pat Finuance or to legislate for an Acht na Gaeilge or a Bill of Rights continues to undermine the value of the agreements.

The past Again, the proposals regarding the past build on those developed by Haass/O’Sullivan and include: • Services for victims and survivors.

• A Historic Investigation Unit.

• An information recovery body.

• Independent Commission for Information recovery.

• An Implementation and Reconciliation Group.

Significantly, the British Government sought to close down the ability of families to pursue disclosure of information through the coroners’ courts. This approach calls into question again the commitment of the British to truth recovery. The Irish Government acquiesced to this by their silence but Sinn Féin refused to accept this and eventually it was agreed that families of victims would continue to have access to the coroners’ courts.

A comprehensive agreement?

Institutional reform This relates to the structure and work practices of the Executive and the Assembly.

It includes the establishment of a civic forum body.

The Stormont House Agreement is not a comprehensive agreement.

While progress has been made on economic and financial issues and on parades, flags and in dealing with the past, the two governments failed to deliver on their commitments in previous agreements.

Sinn Féin is committed to resolving the outstanding issues and recognise that this will require hard work, compromise and understanding.

We need the British Government to honour their obligations and we need the Irish Government to assert its role as a co-equal partner to the agreements.

6 January / Eanáir 2015

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5 Tens of thousands gather outside the Dáil and Government Buildings in December to tell the Government that water charges must be scrapped

BY MARK MOLONEY THE tens of thousands of people who gathered outside Government Buildings in Dublin on 10 December had a very clear and simple message for Fine Gael and Labour: ‘We aren’t going away until domestic water charges are scrapped.’

The huge, peaceful and good-natured protest was a slap in the face to those in the Establishment media and the main parties who have tried to demonise protesters and claim the Government’s concessions would quell dissent. The public know that once domestic water charges are in, they are only going to go one way – and that’s up.

One of those groups taking part in the protest and who have seen the chaos the imposition such charges cause is a small group of activists from the United States known as the Detroit Water Brigade (DWB).

DWB volunteers deliver emergency relief to families facing water shut-offs as well as advocating for a Water Affordability Plan in the city. The group came to prominence after Detroit became the largest US city in history to file for bankruptcy in July 2013.

Residents of Detroit face charges of more than $750 (over €600) a year for water. Those who did not or could not pay found their water cut off. The move by the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department saw the United Nations weigh-in and criticise the decisions to stop water supplies. Water is a human right, the UN declared.

CBS News Detroit reports that almost half of households in the city cannot afford to pay their water bills with 27,000 homes being cut-off in 2014.

DeMeeko Williams, a student and Political Director for the Detroit Water Brigade, was one of four members of the DWB to come to Ireland to take part in the Right2Water protest in December.

Speaking to An Phoblacht at the rally, he said:

FROM DUBLIN TO DETROIT, WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT

Right2Water say

huge protests will continue

“We have no say on water charges in Detroit. We pay some of the highest water rates on the planet even though we sit on one of the largest bodies of water in the world – the Great Lakes – that has over 20% of the world’s supply of fresh water.

“It’s being privatised and sold-off to the highest bidder. We’ve seen firsthand the aggressive ‘shut-off’ campaign in Detroit leaving thousands of families without any water and we can’t allow that to happen here in Ireland.”

‘AtPeace’ Makita Taylor, a spokesperson and Creative Director for DWB, says having the water to your home cut off is very traumatic.

“Sports stadiums and golf courses who owed hundreds of thousands of dollars for water charges weren’t shut off. Low-income families who are just $150 dollars behind are penalised but not the city’s big corporations.”

Right2Water campaigners say opposition to the charges will continue across the state. In a statement, the campaign group says: “Clearly this government is not listening to the people so we need to reflect on our successes to date and work on building an even larger movement.”

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD, who was one of the platform speakers at the December rally, said: “People power has already forced this arrogant government to make concessions on its water policy. This is not something they wanted to do but people power ensured that they had no choice.

“If the Government was listening to the huge numbers who have taken to the streets, as it claims it has, they would know that they are demanding that the Water Tax is scrapped, not capped. The only acceptable solution is to abolish water charges and to dismantle Irish Water.”

Another Right2Water Rally is planned for Dublin on Saturday 31 January. The public are asked to check the Right2Water.ie website for details.

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

7

‘Derry’s Springsteen’

DAMIEN DAMIEN DEMPSEY DEMPSEY

PEADAR WHELAN talks to

Declan McLaughlin

about the new Hi-Flats CD

T

HE PHONE RANG. The familiar voice at the other end rattled my eardrums.

“Peadar Whelan! How are ye? I’ve a new CD out – will An Phoblacht do a review of it?”

It wasn’t so much a request from Declan McLaughlin but an offer I couldn’t refuse. So, a week later, off to Derry I travelled on a wet, dreary Monday, the first day of December, to talk to the front man of The Hi-Flats, the third reincarnation of Deccy’s musical experience that included The Screaming Binlids and The Whole Tribe Sings.

Although well-known as a solo performer, the impact of The Screaming Binlids and The Whole Tribe Sings on the music scene in Derry and beyond is testament to the authenticity of McLaughlin’s music and especially his lyrics.

Damien Dempsey described Deccy as “Derry’s Springsteen . . . his lyrics are raw, urban poetry”, said the Dublin songster before adding “I love Deccy’s passion”.

Despite this acclaim from a man hailed by magazines from Mojo to Hot Press and Billboard as one of the greatest singer/songwriters of his generation, while Declan McLaughlin’s music has a dedicated following in certain circles, it isn’t popular with (as he put it himself) “the Derry Establishment”.

Essentially, the musical journey that McLaughlin has travelled has been a political one. His lyrics reflect the experience of young people growing up and surviving the war on their streets, the poverty and unemployment they see everywhere around them, and he talks about the way people deal with life and living in those circumstances.

Some of his songs explore how kids turn to drugs and, in Derry’s case, how too often an older generation turned to that traditional drug of choice, alcohol, to deal with the difficulties life threw at them.

I

“And then the Bloody Sunday killings took place in their shadow.”

He explains that a lot of his early political activity centred on his involvement with the Bloody

‘Phil Coulter sings about the town being brought to its knees – 1969 was about our people getting up off their knees and fighting back’ DECLAN McLAUGHLIN

Sunday Initiative and over time became heavily

MEET DECCY in the shelter for addicts involved in the campaign for justice. where he works. As an artist and a His Running Up Hill, written for the 1998 community activist, he sees life in its anniversary of the massacre, is a masterrawest form. piece. It is a protest/campaign song that is His latest CD, the eponymous The Hi-Flats (which includes his long-time musical collaborator and producer Dougal McPartland, and features Leanne Doherty on vocals) goes to the heart of what Declan McLaughlin’s music is about.

The ‘Flats’ in the heart of Derry’s Bogside were witness to the politics of the North throughout the conflict with the Orange State.

“They were central to ‘The Battle of the Bogside’ and they were symbols of the political and social corruption that lead to the civil rights protests of the late 1960s,” Deccy says as he lays out the background to what has shaped his music and outlook.

up there with the classics of Dylan, Seeger and Guthrie.

As a member of the city’s Sinn Féin youth

‘HIS LYRICS ARE RAW, URBAN POETRY. I LOVE DECCY’S PASSION’ DAMIEN DEMPSEY

organization, McLaughlin’s republicanism had a significant influence on his songwriting.

“My music was always about the link between revolutionary politics and culture and the way in which we needed to frame the conversation around the issues that impacted on our lives.

“I was always conscious that I wanted to see young people become empowered and active.

“As the North changed after the 1994 cessation and politics came to the fore, I tried to give that an expression in my songs.”

Arrest, imprisonment, unemployment, relationships, drugs and just plain living in Derry are themes of his songs but his lyrics speak to working-class people everywhere.

His lyrics are strong and powerful, as well as cutting.

Fine Day (from 1995) is a great example of that, as is his updated take on Weile Waile, which sets the story of the woman who killed her baby in a modern context of post-natal depression, prescription drugs and suicide.

There is certainly a dark side to McLaughlin’s songwriting that contrasts with the idealised notion epitomised by Phil Coulter’s The Town I Loved So Well of music being ever-present in the Derry air.

“Coulter sings about the town being ‘brought to its knees’,” Deccy points out but refutes that: “1969 was about our people getting up off their knees and fighting back. That’s what I want to be singing about.”

Anyone wanting to get a real sense of what it is to hear someone who’s not afraid to sing about real issues can go to www.declanmclaughlin. bandcamp.com. Declan McLaughlin and The Hi-Flats album is also available from the website

8 January / Eanáir 2015

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NESSA CHILDERS MEP Independent, Dublin

Propaganda, rhetoric and manipulation of voters BEFORE becoming a Member of the European Parliament in 2009 I practised as a psychoanalyst and my approach to politics has been greatly influenced by my former profession, which closely observes the use of language. So it is with great interest that I have observed Fine Gael and Labour since they took office in 2011.

Their use of language to alter truth and ‘create’ facts has been very obvious. However, no attempt was made to find out what actual people really thought or felt, and in recent times this has been exposed by expressions of anger and rage among the public. Not only were these feelings always present since 2008 (when the financial markets went into freefall), they were brought about by the singular lack of empathy or even sympathy displayed by the use of propaganda in the first place.

Subsequent to these errors, the panic-stricken alterations in policy (although welcome) have in themselves

It is completely feasible that left-wing parties can join with Independents in the South to form a government where social justice and fairness is central to all decision-making caused the Government to reveal itself as untrustworthy.

In fact, both parties fell in the polls despite their U-turns.

Allied to these issues is the collusion of many of the mainstream media. This is particularly invidious in relation to the national broadcaster, whose remit includes acting in the public interest, not the Government’s interest. Other print media have engaged in a relentless attack on Sinn Féin, socialists and Independents, all of which have failed so far. Indeed, there have been attacks on the ‘Left’ which were an absurdist ‘reds under the bed’ scare campaign.

In addition, both Government parties display different dysfunctions as we head towards the final days of this administration.

The Labour Party has developed a siege mentality in which it has engaged in the scapegoating of its leader for no other reason than a failure of its Parliamentary Party to face up to its own collusion in austerity policies.

It is now too late to find a new scapegoat.

Fine Gael, on the other hand, has fallen victim to narcissistic fantasies along the ‘born to rule’ line quite possibly present for a long time.

But these behaviours are also symptomatic of a political system that is no longer fit for purpose.

There is an alternative to this form of government.

How do we move from protest and anger to achieving real change?

The recent European and local elections and subsequent opinion polls show an eagerness for reform – voters are listening to alternative voices of Independents on both Right and Left. Across Europe, we are witnessing the growth of far-Left and far-Right political movements. Those of us on the Left are closely watching the increasing popularity of Podemos (18%) in Spain, and Syriza (28%) in Greece, with great interest.

In Ireland it is completely feasible that left-wing parties can join with Independents in the South to form a government where social justice and fairness is central to all decision-making.

For this new political configuration to succeed and bring about the positive change that is needed, we must radically reform our governance structures. This will take time and the introduction of a sophisticated approach to decision-making. Without this reform there will be no change. Our system of public administration makes it nearly impossible for new ideas to be introduced, and the centralised nature of our governance structure hampers meaningful democratic discourse.

Real change will also depend on allowing dissent and independent thinking, and on allowing Government TDs and senators to vote with their conscience.

Of course, immediately this is suggested we are told again that chaos would break out and government would be impossible. This scaremongering is deliberate,

5 RTÉ is supposed to act in the public interest, not the Government's interest

for allowing people such freedom would involve a loss of control by those vested interests that require a compliant public.

The issue of media ownership cannot be avoided either because of the megaphone effect of a print and broadcast media repeating Government policy.

Serious examination must also be made of the role of the national broadcaster and the Broadcasting Author-

The issue of media ownership cannot be avoided because of the megaphone effect of a print and broadcast media repeating Government policy ity of Ireland to ensure that these bodies are actually protecting the public interest.

The challenge for left-wing parties and Independents is to seize this moment and work to bring about real, lasting positive change for everyone. This is possible and it has to be done, for if it is not done the damage to the people by the political system will be incalculable and possibly irreversible.

3 The rise of Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece is being watched closely by many on the Left

NESSA CHILDERS is the daughter of Erskine H. Childers, fourth President of Ireland, and grand-daughter of Robert Erskine Childers, who was executed by the Free State Government during the Civil War. She was previously a Green Party councillor and then an MEP for the Labour Party in 2009 before becoming an Independent and elected as an Independent MEP in 2014. She is a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

9

The 1919 Democratic Programme represented the trade union movement’s contribution to the shaping of the new state. That moment may be on us again.

DAVID General Secretary BEGG Irish Congress of Trade Unions

Executive Committee member, European Trade Union Confederation

Trade unions and ‘the titanic battle of ideas’ The addition of one and a half billion new THE 1980s ushered in a global counterrevolution that transformed the world for industrial workers (in China and India) undermined the collective bargaining strength of trade the worse.

Margaret Thatcher’s oft-quoted dictum that “there is no such thing as society” was less an observation and more a declaration of intent, the enunciation of a crucial goal of neoliberal ideology.

For buccaneering, speculative markets to triumph, society as it existed had to be dismantled. That in turn required a full-scale assault on any organisations or institutions that promoted collectivist values – the trade union movement being an obvious target.

Fast-forward 30 years and the triumph of the market was brought to its natural, logical conclusion with the global collapse of 2008.

A coherent narrative – in the form of a vision for the future, how a new, progressive Ireland might be built – has not yet emerged from this more populist Left Yet the most immediate consequence was to further entrench the same neoliberal doctrine that caused the crisis.

Because it had so manifestly failed, the onset of crisis should have spelt the death knell of neoliberalism, but instead it appears to have given it a blood transfusion.

Unfortunately, the collapse also found the traditional social-democratic Left weakened and wanting.

It seems certain that 30 years of neoliberal counter-revolution sapped its intellectual confidence and vigour, while the 1990s dalliance with “The Third Way” (so beloved of Blair and Clinton) damaged its credibility.

But there are other reasons for the weakness of the global Left.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the decision of China to become capitalist by decree fundamentally shifted the balance of power between capital and labour, leaving organised labour and its political allies in a far weaker state.

unions almost overnight. Capital could go where it wanted to find new workers.

Technology and the deregulation of capital markets exacerbated this, with footloose corporations forcing a race to the bottom in labour standards and tax.

In developed economies we now see a hollowing out of the labour market, the rise of low-paid, precarious work and increased inequality. If Thomas Piketty’s thesis is correct, we will see Dickensian levels of social division across Europe in the near future.

If you have free trade, the free circulation of capital and people and also undermine the social state and all forms of progressive taxation, the temptations of defensive nationalism and identity politics will very likely grow stronger.

This is seen in the rise of the Tea Party in the US, UKIP in Britain and the Front National in France.

But the drift away from mainstream politics is not an exclusively right-wing phenomenon.

It’s happening on the Left as well with Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, the SNP in Scotland and Sinn Féin here.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that these parties have come from outside the traditional Left and labour movement and are largely responding to economic policies imposed from outside, by the Troika.

Crucially, they now occupy a space left open by traditional social democratic parties who have been unable to advance a persuasive alternative narrative to austerity.

But that coherent narrative – in the form of a vision for the future, how a new, progressive Ireland might be built – has not yet emerged from this more populist Left either.

If it is true that a new politics is being born in Ireland – particularly on the Left – it is imperative that this compelling narrative is central to its foundation.

Otherwise, the neoliberal vision will simply colonise and dominate all available policy space.

The Left needs to recognise that we are engaged in a titanic battle of ideas. It is a battle we must

5 The trade union movement is critical to the process of renewal of the Left

5 Food banks: The onset of the crisis should have spelt the death knell of neoliberalism

win if we are to have any hope of shaping a better world, of tilting the balance in favour of the majority.

To do that we must be able to convince our fellow citizens that there is a better and fairer way of running the economy and society.

We must credibly explain that people are homeless and go hungry as a result of political choices and not because of the application of some iron law of economics.

Most importantly of all, we have to assert that the economy must serve society and not vice versa. As the largest civil society body on the island of Ireland, the trade union movement is

critical to this process of renewal Organised labour has existed in Ireland for more than 200 years. It was an underground movement until 1824, when Westminster decriminalised trade unions by revoking the Combination Acts.

By 1850, all trades were unionised.

The movement went on to found the Labour Party in 1912. The 1916 Proclamation was printed in Liberty Hall, and the Citizen Army was first into the GPO. The 1919 Democratic Programme represented the trade union movement’s contribution to the shaping of the new state.

It seems that moment may be on us again.

10 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn was one of two keynote speakers alongside the internationally-renowned PLO Executive member Dr Hanan Ashrawi at a recent solidarity conference in Ramallah – he spoke to An Phoblacht 72 hours after his return

PALESTINE

The two-state solution is in peril

BY MARK MOLONEY “THE IRISH PEOPLE stand shoulder-toshoulder with the Palestinian people and we will not rest until the Palestinian people are living in peace and prosperity in their own State. Long live Palestine!”

These were the closing remarks of Sinn Féin Justice spokesperson Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD at the international conference of local authorities in solidarity with the Palestinian people which took place in Ramallah in the West Bank at the end of November.

While in Palestine, Pádraig visited various parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem to see the situation on the ground for himself. Driving to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the Palestinian City of Bethlehem, required him to take a route dubbed ‘The Devil’s Elbow’, which skirts the illegal separation barrier. This circuitous route is mainly used by Palestinians; other roads, more direct routes, are only for settlers. “I call them apartheid roads,” Pádraig tells An Phoblacht.

“A human rights defender showed me the scale of the blatant apartheid system in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

“Illegal Jewish settlements have superb infrastructure, clean streets and a modern tram system connecting them to west Jerusalem. It’s like a

‘The Israeli Government is pushing the Palestinians out of Jerusalem’ modern European city. Then, in the Palestinian areas – and these are not poor areas, rents here are upwards of €800 per month and people living there all pay their taxes – their roads, streets and services are appalling.

“The Israeli Government uses draconian legal and infrastructural tactics to push the Palestinian people out of Jerusalem.”

Throughout Jerusalem are the remnants of demolished Palestinian homes. The illegal policy of home demolitions is used to make way for Jewish settlements and Israeli tourism. Meanwhile, Palestinians are stonewalled in their attempts to build new homes.

“They actually charge the Palestininans to have their homes demolished, or they can pay a fine to delay the demolition,” Pádraig says incredulously.

The continuous carve-up and fragmentation of the West Bank into Palesitnian islands surrounded

by Israeli settlements is putting the two-state solution in real danger, he says.

“It’s desperate. My fear is a third intifada (uprising).”

On the streets of Jerusalem the situation is tense.

5 Pádraig Mac Lochlainn addresses the conference while PLO spokesperson and PLO Executive member Hanan Ashrawi (right) looks on

“The Palestinian people I met are deeply concerned. They don’t want to see a return to violence but there’s a sense that they are running out of options. The international community has utterly failed to stop the settlements.

“There is a clear Israeli strategy to talk about a two-state solution but every single day they seek to destroy and undermine it.”

Following Israel’s blitz on Gaza in the summer of 2014 and attacks by Israeli settlers, there has been a surge of violence in Jerusalem, including the killing of five Jews in a gun and knife attack on a synagogue which came days after a Palestinian bus driver was found hanged in his vehicle. Other attacks have followed.

“There is a sense of hopelessness,” Pádraig tells me. “Obviously we condemn the recent Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem and the Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank but if we do not urgently deal with the situation now, then a third intifada will be hard to avoid. The two-state solution is in peril.”

The Palestinian leadership under Mahmoud

Abbas has been repeatedly undermined as their concessions are constantly derided as not going far enough for Israel, despite their willingness to accept just 22% of historical Palestine. This has also served to bolster Abbas’s rivals in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“Unless there is urgent intervention and the Israeli state is confronted, conflict is inevitable,” the Irish member of parliament says.

The USA’s backing for Israel and its constant vetoing of United Nations Security Council

‘The Israeli strategy is to talk about a two-state solution but every day they seek to destroy and undermine it’

resolutions on Palestine and Israel has contributed to the deterioration in the Middle East peace process. Pádraig says it’s time the Irish and European parliaments challenged the USA. “The USA has been a comfort blanket for Israel that has allowed the situation to get to where it is.

“The vast majority of people and states across the world want Palestinians to have their freedom.

Those of us who want that also want the security of the Israeli people to be guaranteed – and the two-state agreement provides for that.

“The Palestinians are a lovely, decent, welcoming and honourable community. I felt so sorry that political leaders in the international community have failed these people who have such a rich history and culture.

“They just want to have a life, have freedom, have a job and have the right to walk through their own cities and towns.

“It’s up to our political leaders to step up to the mark for the people of Palestine and peace with justice.”

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

11

Irish Government ignores new challenge to old global economic order

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THE BLIND – and indeed ignorant – subservience of the Irish Government and the main opinion-formers to all things European (including the ill-fated euro currency and its strong nexus with the US dollar) risks leaving our country outside the new dynamic focus of global economics as the major developing nations create a challenge to the domination of the dollar in world affairs.

It is noteworthy that the Irish media have ignored – or are blissfully unaware of the major development over the summer – the coming together of the ‘BRICS states’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to take the first steps towards creating a new reserve currency to replace the dollar.

Ireland will be seriously affected by this because our policy-makers have doggedly clung to the European and US connections even though these economies will potentially see, at best, limited growth and more likely repeated bouts of recession as the new system takes hold.

Already the positive growth rates predicted by the Government are totally dependent on restored consistent growth in both the Eurozone and the US. But the US has been in decline for some time. At one time, the US dollar was the reserve currency for over 90% of world trade (outside the then existing Soviet and communist blocs). This figure is now down to 60%, and the creation of a new reserve currency, if successful, will accelerate this decline.

The US has for several decades been living on borrowed time and borrowed money. Its citizens still enjoy a standard of living far higher than it earns in actual production but its debt

5 The 'BRICS states' have come together to take the first step towards creating a new reserve currency

has now reached the unsustainable level of over $US18trillion, the highest ever.

The US has been able to do this because it used its political and military might in the 1970s to force OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) to agree that oil would be priced in dollars on the international markets.

This meant that the oil-rich states became awash with dollars and ensured that US banks

The Irish media have ignored the first steps by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa towards creating a new reserve currency to replace the dollar remained the main conduit for international exchange and investment.

Last July’s decision by the BRICS challenges all of this. And it’s worth noting that the major energy deal just signed between Russia and China (worth $400billion) has been denominated in yuan and rubles.

The synergy here is frightening for the old order: Russia is a major producer of energy;

China is a major consumer of energy. Their coming together, in tandem with new technological powerhouses like India and Brazil, shows too that the anti-Russian card played by the US (with EU support) in Ukraine has backfired.

It is to the credit of Irish civil servants that, despite the ideological prejudices of the politicians, they have kept the door to China open but joining in sanctions against Russia cuts us off from the option of being a gateway link between East and West, between Asia and Europe, and between the old imperialism and the former colonies.

Of course, the US is fighting this economic war very dirtily. The pressure placed on Bulgaria to abandon the Southern Stream oil pipeline is a case in point. By building this pipeline under the sea, Russia was ensuring that Southern Europe would have secure energy supply that could not be interfered with by events in Ukraine.

Russia, of course, has just switched course.

A new deal has been agreed with Turkey (now moving closer to Asia and away from Europe in the wake of its failure to secure EU membership) and the pipeline will be built through Turkey right up to the Greek border.

Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary and Austria can add to this new route to ensure their own

supplies, something that Hungary in particular is very keen to see.

Meanwhile, our political and economic leaders can see nothing outside the existing EU/US frameworks, even though the world is changing all around us.

The US, of course, has seen off the challenge of the euro to replace the US as a currency of last resort and has created the crisis in Ukraine to try and drive a wedge between Russia and Europe before Germany is strong enough to ignore the US completely.

This strategy keeps Europe weak but Russia

It will be economic treason if the Government (with Fianna Fáil support) allows TTIP to become enshrined as one of Ireland’s international obligations has dramatically shown that it has other options.

The second wing of US strategy is to push through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This will subordinate national governments to (effectively US) judicial oversight in the interests of global corporations in which the US remains dominant.

It will be economic treason of a rank order if the Government (with Fianna Fáil support, for that party has not condemned TTIP) goes ahead and allows TTIP to become enshrined as one of Ireland’s international obligations.

This is the background to the developing new world economic order but, the China visit notwithstanding, it seems that our political leaders remain determined to bury their heads in the sand and condemn the Irish people to economic insecurity.

12 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

NEW TRADE DEAL COULD HAVE HUGE IMPLICATIONS FOR IRELAND

TTIP­­– Dangerous, secretive and anti-democratic

BY MARK MOLONEY “IT’S a very dangerous development” is how Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy describes attempts to include a mechanism in a free trade deal between the US and the EU that would allow private companies to sue national governments and force them to change their laws in the favour of big business.

Matt was speaking at the European Information Office in Dublin last month at the launch of a discussion document he has produced on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP: Potential Consequences for Ireland.

The Sinn Féin MEP tells An Phoblacht: “We have huge concerns around TTIP. Chief among these is that TTIP will include the Investor State Disputes Settlement (ISDS) mechanism.

This is basically a very long-winded way of saying private multinational companies will be able to override courts and force governments to change laws in their favour.

“It’s a very dangerous development.”

Also speaking at the event was John Hilary, Executive Director of global anti-poverty group War on Want. He says: “This debate is really hotting up. People in Europe are asking ‘What on earth is being done in our name and behind closed doors?’”

Hilary says the lack of transparency is extremely worrying: “The European Commission has a 30-year ban on all public access to the documentation behind TTIP. It’s just extraordinary that we should be

5 Matt Carthy MEP criticised a mechanism within TTIP which will allow private companies to sue national governments

If ‘fracking’ is banned in Ireland then energy companies could sue the Government for millions of euros faced with that type of anti-democratic attitude from the European Commisssion.”

He says that the deal will cost a combined 1million jobs in the EU and USA; 600,000 of these are expected to be in the European Union.

He notes that this is admitted by the European Commission which says TTIP is likely to bring “prolonged and substantial dislocation of EU workers" similar to the “migration” of jobs following the North American Free Trade Agreement.

John points to examples where ISDS has been included in bilateral trade agreements to show the damage it can do. In Germany, Vattenfall energy company is suing the German Government for €3.7billion over the country’s decision to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In Australia, US tobacco giant Phillip Morris is suing the Government for billions of dollars over its health policy requiring all cigarettes to be sold in plain packets.

The War on Want chief asks: “Do we want a future that is directed just in the interest of big business? Or do we want one that is the traditional European social model of having markets, having trade but having them embedded in important social and environmental objectives?

“That’s the choice we are left with. We should not be allowing our future to be handed over to big business.”

5 Lynn Boylan MEP questioned the impact of TTIP on EU food regulations

Dublin Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan, former Chair of SafeFood Ireland, an ecologist and a member of the EU’s Environmental and Public Health Committee, says harmonisation of regulations between the US and EU will only mean the watering down of EU regulations which protect citizens.

She points to the general lack of use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in European food compared to the US, where

70% of foodstuffs contain GMOs. The lack of regulation in the US and the high-regulation in the EU would put European food producers at a disadvantage as Irish farmers go into direct competition with US farmers.

US lobbyists want the removal of the European ban on the use of bovine growth hormones, which 90% of beef produced in the US contains and which has been banned from the EU since 1988.

“My fears are that any harmonisation of

‘We should not be allowing our future to be handed over to big business’ JOHN HILARY WAR ON WANT

5 Peadar Tóibín TD says the alleged advantages of TTIP are overblown

standards will have a negative impact on EU environmental and food regulations,” Lynn says.

She also warns against the use of the ISDS mechanism by energy companies to force through the use of the controversial practice of hydraulic-fracturing. If ‘fracking’ is banned in Ireland then energy companies could sue the Government for millions of euros.

Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Peadar Tóibín TD, is critical of the lack of discussion within Irish politics of TTIP. “In Leinster House most TDs know very little about TTIP or have little understanding of where negotiations are at the moment. It seems only Sinn Féin and other parties on the Left are clued-in on this issue."

He describes the estimates of economic advantages from TTIP as “overblown” and points out that both France and Germany have criticised TTIP but they cannot be relied on to bring it down.

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

It is disingenuous to suggest that only those children who attend integrated schools will be afforded an education that ‘accommodates, safeguards and cherishes divergent identities’

13

CHRIS HAZ ZARD

Sinn Féin Assembly spokesperson on Education

Parental choice at the heart of education Sinn Féin MLA Chris Hazzard responds to May Blood’s article in An Phoblacht on integrated education 5 May Blood wrote in December's An Phoblacht

MAY BLOOD, Chair of the Integrated Education Fund, posed a number of questions in ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ in the last issue of An Phoblacht to republicans in relation to integrated education.

Fundamentally she asked how some republicans can articulate a vision of a united Ireland that accommodates, safeguards and cherishes a British identity yet fail to support a model of education in the North (integrated) that works to address and meet these challenges.

In one regard, May Blood is correct. Some republicans are indeed reluctant to ‘support’ the integrated model of education she has referred to. So too are some unionists. Indeed, many who do not subscribe to any political affiliation are also reluctant to ‘support’ what is in reality an ecumenical model of Christian education.

I think it reasonable to suggest that republicans, however, wholeheartedly support the ongoing engagement between educational sectors that has witnessed a welcome détente of old enmities as increasing numbers of pupils from all traditions share, collaborate and integrate to an extent once thought impossible.

In light of these recent developments I believe it is more accurate to state that many republicans are reluctant to support the increasingly obsolete concept that integrated education represents the singular solution to such a complex issue of a divided society.

For generations we have lived in a divided society but it is not divided as a result of the sectoral dynamics of our schooling system; even if we dissolve all sectoral interests today, in the morning we will still awake to a divided society.

When we bear in mind that as little as 9% of a child’s life from the age of 4 to 18 is spent inside the classroom, perhaps we should instead focus attentions outside the school gates if we are to truly bring down the walls between our streets and inside our heads.

5 Society is not divided as a result of the sectoral dynamics of our schooling system

In the next few weeks and months, families will begin the process of deciding the best educational setting for their child. For a variety of reasons, the majority of parents will not

choose an integrated setting; some will. I think it is disingenuous to suggest that only those children who attend integrated schools will be afforded an education that “accommodates, safeguards and cherishes divergent identities”.

I also think it is highly insensitive and wildly erroneous to suggest that the freedom for parents to choose the most appropriate setting for their child represents a form of segregation. It simply is not the case. Those voices who continue to conjure up the spectre of segregation must ask themselves how this squares with the Council for

I believe many republicans are reluctant to support the increasingly obsolete concept that integrated education represents the singular solution to such a complex issue of a divided society

Integrated Education’s call lately for the realisation of a system which is “diverse, based on parental choice, and receptive to parental wishes”.

As an Irish republican I believe integrated education (like Irish-medium education) should remain a fundamental component of our education system and I would staunchly defend the legal protection that both sectors are afforded as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. I applaud successive Sinn Féin Education Ministers who have used this legislative duty to “encourage and facilitate” the expansion of integrated education in instances where other sectors would not have been afforded such luxury.

I also welcome the fact that many integrated schools have begun to introduce Gaelic sports and Irish-language classes into the learning process (this should most definitely be viewed as a step in the right direction). But there should be no resting on laurels. In a recent 32-page supplement in the Irish News extolling the virtues of integrated education, there was no celebration of Gaelic games, not even a cúpla focal.

In an attempt to reach out to the traditional Irish nationalist and republican readership, this was a serious omission. Supporters of the integrated movement must ask themselves why this was allowed to happen. If they are genuine about debunking the myth that integration is merely a byword for assimilation then this must be addressed.

Finally, with the onset of a new year we are all afforded the opportunity to reflect and refocus our priorities for the year ahead.

Education Minister John O’Dowd will no doubt be looking at the need to progress with ‘Area Planning’ as the effects of thousands of empty schooldesks are felt across the system.

May Blood wants the Education Minister to ensure Area Planning puts “parental choice at the very heart” of education going forward.

Republicans agree entirely, May.

14 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Is fada an t-achar bliain sa pholaitíocht

Bliain nua mhaith?

TÁ AN TURCAÍ ite agus na bronntanais roinnte agus muid ag tabhairt aghaidh arís eile ar chúrsaí polaitíochta mar is ceart agus gach seans gur bliain corrach a bheidh ann.

Níl aon dabht ná go bhfuil an chéad olltoghchán eile mar phríoracht anois ó dheas agus toghchán Westminster ó thuaidh. Níl aon chinnteacht fós cén uair a mbeidh muid ag tabhairt faoi na botháín vótála sa deisceart, ach measann cuid mhaith go mbeidh rialtas nua againn roimhe Nollaig seo chugainn.

D’fhéadfadh go bhfeicfidh muid brú taobh istigh d’Fhine Gael ó thaobh ceannaireachta de.

Míshuaimhneas cúlbhinseoirí – agus roinnt nach bhfuil chomh fada siar b’fhéidir – de bharr brú ón bpobal faoi chúrsaí uisce agus eile. Bheadh cuid acu den dtuairim nach mbeidh an díobháil toghchánaíochta baileach chomh dona má bhíonn athrú ag an mbarr, ach chothódh sin strachailt inmheánach imeasc na léinte ghorma.

Cuimhnigh freisin go bhfuil na leibhéil sástachta le Enda Kenny mar cheannaire titithe go mór ón olltoghchán deiridh agus beirt do na comhleacaithe is dílse a bhí aige – Phil Hogan agus James Reilly – nach mbeidh leath an oiread tionchar acu feasta ar bhaill eile an pháirtí parlaiminte.

Measann cuid mhaith go mbeidh rialtas nua againn roimhe Nollaig seo chugainn I réimsí eile, is cosúil go mbeidh deireadh le mí na meala do Joe McHugh i Roinn na Gaeltachta nuair a thiocfaidh sé chun cinn le hAcht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla 2. Tá dul chun cinn pearsanta déanta ag fear Thír Chonaill ó thaobh labhairt na Gaeilge di agus ní chuireann sin iontas orm.

Ach, níl athrú dá laghad tagtha ar pholasaithe, nó níos tabhachtaí, dearcadh an rialtais agus na statseirbhísigh i leith na teanga. Ni léir ó na cinn bhille a foilsíodh nach bhfuil sin ag dul in aon treo ach ar gcúl, muna gcuirfidh Joe McHugh athrú an-suntasach air.

Léiríonn taighde a d’fhoilsigh Conchúir Ó Giollagáin, Brian Ó Curnáin agus a gcomhleacaithe, an ghéarchéim atá ag baint le caighdeán na Gaeilge imeasc cainteoirí dúchais agus is beag gníomh atá glactha ag an rialtas le sin a mhaolú.

Ní léir go bhfuiltear ag déanamh mórán dul chun cinn ar spriocanna na Straitéise Fiche Bliain don Ghaeilge ach an oiread agus níl bogadh ar bith dhá dhéanamh maidir le maolú na Gaeilge san Aontas Eorpach. Ó thaobh cúrsaí tuaithe di, in ainneoin go bhfuil sé aitheanta ar fud na hEorpa go raibh an

5 Seanadóir Shinn Féin Trevor Ó Clochartaigh agus an Teachta Michael Colreavy ag agóid in éadan an chórais soláthar díreach i mBaile Átha Chliath

arís, nach bhfuil mar choinníoll ag an Eoraip, ach atá dhá chur i bhfeidhm ag páirtithe an Rialtais chun tacú leis na feirmeoirí is rachmasúla agus atá ag cuireadh deireadh, céim ar chéim, le slite beatha na bhfeirmeoirí beaga.

Tá scannal na h-ionaid ‘Soláthar Dhíreach’ fós againn, in ainneoin ráitis ghalánta ón Aire Stáit Aodhán Ó Ríordán go ndéanfar leasú air. Tá muid fós ag breathnú ar na mílte daoine a tháinig anseo ag lorg tearmann, i ngéibhinn agus a bunchearta daonna sáraithe, fad is atá úinéirí na n-ionaid ag déanamh na milliún de bhrabach as cruachás na ndaoine leochaileacha seo. Is náire shaolta é.

Agus, sa bhreis ar seo ar fad, tá slán fágtha ag imirceoirí na hÉireann, ar bh’éigean dóibh imeacht as an tír de bharr an ghéarcheím eacnamaíochta agus a bhí sa mbaile don Nollaig. Agus smaoiníonn muid freisin ar na céadta mílte eile acu atá thar sáile agus nach raibh ar a gcumas teacht abhaile le bheith i gcomhluadar cairde agus gaolta don Nollaig. Beidh muid ag díríu go mór ar pholasaí an pháírtí don diaspóra a fhorbairt ar feadh na bliana seo.

Sin na tosaíochtaí atá romhamsa i mbliana agus mé mar urlabhraí sóisearach Dlí & Cirt, urlabhraí Gaeilge & Gaeltachta, Tuaithe & don Diaspóra ag an bpáirtí. Ó, sea agus suíochán Dála 5 Seanadóirí Trevor Ó Clochartaigh agus Kathryn Reilly ag 'ól sláinte na vótálaithe thar lear' laistigh de Theach a bhaint amach le cúnamh Dé! Cén tosaíocht atá agaibhse?

Laighean. Bunaíodh an feachtas chun cearta vótála a thabhairt do shaoránaithe Éireannacha thar lear

múnla a bhí againn sa tír seo ó thaobh an cur chuige LEADER a bhí againn ar fheabhas, is léir go bhfuil rialtas s’againne dírithe ar sin a scrios, an chumhacht daonlathach a bhaint de na pobail logánta agus smacht a thabhairt ar an réimse

forbartha pobail seo do na húdaráis áitiúla.

Tá na feirmeoirí beaga sléíbhe i ndroch chaoi chomh maith, de bharr ceanndánacht an Aire Talmhaíochta faoi cur i bhfeidhm na scéime GLAS, a aithnítear nach bhfuil inoibrithe agus

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

15

An authentic narrative which republicans must seek to understand – William ‘Plum’ Smith’s new book on loyalism and unionism

An ‘Inside Man’ with more to say?

BY DECLAN KEARNEY

SINN FÉIN NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON

WILLIAM ‘PLUM’ SMITH’S BOOK, Inside Man: Loyalists of Long Kesh – The Untold Story, gives a personal account of his imprisonment as a young man from the Shankill Road.

He was initially jailed for six months in 1971 but, shortly afterwards, served over another five years in the unionist paramilitary cages or compounds of Long Kesh.

‘Plum’ Smith traces his involvement in the conflict back to August 1969, first as a young teenager, then as a

To their credit, ‘Plum’ Smith, Ervine, Spence, Mitchell and others have grappled with developing a coherent form of unionist class politics that has tried to think beyond the conservative and sectarian hegemony of mainstream political unionism vigilante, quickly getting drawn into the Red Hand Commando (RHC) paramilitaries, a UVF affiliate.

He paints a vivid picture of his two jail terms. After shooting a Catholic in 1972, he was moved between Armagh Jail, Long Kesh and Crumlin Road before starting a ‘Special Category’ (political status) sentence back in the cages.

He writes as he speaks, and describes early encounters (some violent) with

republican prisoners, actual and abortive escapes, learning Gaeilge, making poitín, and the exploits of “Granny McCrea”.

At one point he refers to the growing population of young unionist prisoners looking “to our future with apprehension and anxiety”. They found leadership from the towering personality of Gusty Spence, the UVF/RHC prisoners’ O/C in Long Kesh. Spence, a former British soldier, laid down a regimented routine of drills, flags, uniforms and shiny boots. Smith says this regime brought focus and discipline.

He offers a fascinating account of the burning of Long Kesh by republicans as witnessed from the UVF cages.

His account, however, stops short in other respects.

There is little assessment of the interplay between the war outside and political life in the cages. He briefly

touches on conflict outside between the UVF and UDA, and its influence on tensions between both in Long Kesh.

He doesn’t speak of how jail affected his family or other personal relationships.

One very interesting section deals with the “Political Think Tank”, comprising Smith, Spence, Ronnie McCullough, Ken Gibson, John McKeague, and others. They shared their ideas with Billy Mitchell, and this had an “influence on political and operational matters on the outside”, but no further explanation is offered. Later, in 1977, he says questions were sent to the UVF leadership about whether that group should adopt a “political philosophy”.

Tony Novosel’s book Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity [August 2013 review available on the An Phoblacht website] separately confirms Spence’s and Mitchell’s role helping to encourage a process of political discussion within the UVF constituency. He argues those ideas were undermined by internal power struggles, sectarian attacks, the hostility of mainstream unionist parties, and the British Government, including its intelligence agencies. Smith could have offered an ‘Inside Man’ insight to that frustrated process.

The book effectively ends with his release in 1977 but then jumps forward to 1991 and formation of the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC). Novosel says the UVF and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), of which Smith became chairperson, had continued to contend with the challenges of new thinking through until the mid-1980s.

Upon his release ‘Plum’ Smith became a shop steward in Belfast’s shipyard. He explains how he campaigned on prison issues, human rights, miscarriages of

5 Loyalist prisoners inside Long Kesh

justice, and shoot-to-kill incidents.

Unfortunately he provides no substantive commentary on the period leading

The future of the PUP will depend upon its ability to positively embrace non-sectarian, common ground and class issues. Sinn Féin will work constructively and collaboratively with any such unionist political project up to the CLMC ceasefire announcement in October 1994 within the UVF and PUP. He chaired that particular press conference.

5 David Adams, David Ervine, Gary McMichael, William 'Plum' Smith, Gusty Spence, John White and Jackie McDonald at the CLMC ceasefire conference in October 1994

In the period since, the PUP former leader David Ervine’s death and the shadow of previous UVF/UDA feuding, other killings, shootings and criminality have all combined to reduce the PUP’s electoral popularity.

However, Smith represents an authentic narrative which republicans must seek to understand. This book can be an important contribution to encouraging the mutual respect which all political sides need to have for each other. He exemplifies an important, longstanding tradition within workingclass unionism that has tried to think beyond the conservative and sectarian hegemony of mainstream political unionism.

To their credit, ‘Plum’ Smith, Ervine, Spence, Mitchell and others have grappled with developing a coherent form of unionist class politics. That thinking is relevant to the political process. Such ideas should contribute meaningfully towards a shared future and authentic reconciliation. That will depend upon a viable political project.

For now, however, the prospect of the PUP emerging as that viable alternative remains denied by the continued existence of the UVF and the misconception that its political or electoral base can be built upon a negative, anti-republican agenda. The future of the PUP will depend upon its ability to positively embrace non-sectarian, common ground and class issues.

Sinn Féin will work constructively and collaboratively with any such unionist political project.

‘Plum’ Smith is bound to have an ‘Inside Man’ perspective on these very real issues.

• Inside Man: Loyalists of Long Kesh – The Untold Story, by William ‘Plum’ Smith (Colourpoint Books), £9.99.

16 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

THEY’VE SUPPORTED MADNESS AND THE WAILERS AND PLAYED ELECTRIC PICNIC . . .

B I O N I C R A T S FRONTMAN DEREK CLABBY TALKS TO AN PHOBLACHT

‘Reggae is the palette that I paint with’ THEY’VE PLAYED Electric Picnic, toured throughout mainland Europe and supported ska and reggae legends Madness and The Wailers but it’s unlikely you’ll hear tracks by the Bionic Rats on any mainstream music radio stations – and that’s probably why many of their resident venues describe them as ‘Dublin’s best-kept secret’.

An Phoblacht readers will have spotted their music being used on our video reports from protests and demonstrations, including the huge Right2Water rally in Dublin on 10 December. An Phoblacht’s MARK MOLONEY caught up with Bionic Rats vocalist, guitarist and songwriter DEREK CLABBY ahead of a gig in Dublin city centre.

IT’S THREE DAYS before Christmas in Dublin’s Temple Bar area and the ever-popular Foggy Dew bar is packed to the rafters with people in festive jumpers and hats. It’s also Sunday, and that means it’s ‘Ska and Reggae Night’ and soon The Bionic Rats will have the place hopping.

But before they hit the stage, frontman Derek Clabby meets me in the Offside football and fashion shop, just a few doors down the cobble-

course”, as Derek puts it.

“I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to keep it going so I started singing and that’s where the Bionic Rats came from.” Other current Bionic Rats members are formerley of bands such as Kingsativa, Gangsters, Infomatics and The Method. “I probably need a diagram to explain because they’re all so interlinked.”

The Bionic Rats have gone on to become a staple of Dublin’s, and Ireland’s, live music scene.

Derek says supporting Madness at Tripod in Dublin was one of the most memorable gigs of his career, for more than one reason.

“Our trumpet player was in at soundcheck and his car got clamped. We went on stage and he had disappeared to sort it out. One of the biggest gigs in our life and we couldn’t find him! “ We j u s t had to go on. He

‘We went on stage as support for Madness and our trumpet player had disappeared’ stoned square from the boisterous city centre venue, for a chat. The Offside shop was one of the organisers behind the recent Palestine fundraiser ‘Reggaid’ which the Bionic Rats played.

So how did Derek get into music?

“There’s nobody in my family that played music but my Ma and Da always encouraged me, although they said I probably wouldn’t get much work out of it,” he grins.

“I started getting into bass in the ’80s. My auld fella helped me out with a bass amp. There was no formal training; me and my friends just learned our instruments ourselves.”

He says his first band, Burning Illusion, came into being with him and some of his friends sitting around and listening to Bob Marley.

“One of the guys could play guitar and another was a fairly decent singer so I got handed a bass guitar. I didn’t even know what a bass was! The band never left the bedroom where we used to rehearse, wrecking the neighbours’ heads,” he smiles.

Eventually the band Kingsativa was born and it enjoyed a dedicated following and toured extensively for over a decade before it “ran its

5 Derek Clabby speaks to An Phoblacht

strolled in three songs in, wearing his jacket and carrying his trumpet case. I shouted: ‘Ah, it’s nice of you to join us!’”

Derek has also played Electric Picnic more than once as well as sharing stages with such acts as The Wailers, Damien Dempsey, Hothouse Flowers, Bad Manners and his cousin, one Imelda Mary Clabby – better known by her stage name, Imelda May. He has also gigged across Europe, including a surreal experience in the former Yugoslavia.

“We played Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina right after the war. It was a real eye-opener,

‘We played Croatia and Bosnia just after the war, even Medjugorge’ walking through a war-zone and playing gigs.

It was a bizarre feeling meeting guys over there that were wounded in the war. We played Mostar, Split and even Medjugorge – it was like Disneyland for Catholics.”

He says the atmosphere among people was “pretty cool”, adding: “You wouldn’t think they had just been through a war but there was still a real feeling of lawlessness.”

The Bionic Rats albums Return of the Bionic Rats

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

17

5 Drummer Richie Hayes, singer and guitarist Derek Clabby, saxophonist Mason McMillen and Donagh Molloy on trumpet at The Foggy Dew (bassist Graham Birney is just out of shot)

(2009) and Should Be Seen and Not Heard (2011) are not only infectiously catchy and bursting with energy, they also deal with serious issues such as racism, the recession and Garda brutality as part of an overarching theme of day-to-day life in the Irish capital.

Derek says the lyrics from a track on their new album, Another Fine Mess, due for release in February, best describe his writing process.

“Reggae is the palette that I paint with, talking about the things I bear witness to, on and off the Liffey’s quays.”

“I mean, I don’t come out and think: ‘Right, today I’m gonna write a tune about racism or tomorrow is about whatever.’ It’s just about what you see around you. It’s life. I do the writing and the rest of the band make it sound fucking great,” he laughs.

‘Politics affects everybody, whether you like it or not’ On the track You Can’t Do That, which deals with Garda brutality, Derek tells me: “That’s a true story. Myself and two friends were walking home from a night out, down Marlborough Street, next to O’Connell Street, when a guy ran past us, on his toes. Four or five gardaí were chasing him and they caught him at the Pro Cathedral. When they were restraining him they picked him up and went clop,” he bangs his flat hand on the table. “They smacked his head off the kerb. And a crowd was standing around shouting at them, ‘You can’t do that!’ So that’s where that came from.”

It’s an observation on events in people’s lives, Derek says.

“We’ve had guys playing in the band who were gardaí, and that’s why we had other songs like Bad Garda to point out that there’s bad apples in all walks of life but you can’t tar everyone with the same brush.”

Would he describe the Bionic Rats as a ‘political band’?

“No, but politics affects everybody. I guess you are into it whether you like it or not.

“I’ve voted for Sinn Féin and Labour in the past. I wouldn’t go near the others – they can fuck off. It’s about right and wrong.

“I’ve been listening to reggae since I was 13.

The strong theme is standing up for your rights.

It’s more social than political. The Specials were the perfect band. They were very socially aware.

They were a major influence on me, even if I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time.”

In October, the Bionic Rats were one of the headline acts at the Gaza Toy Drive’s ‘Reggaid’

‘I’ve voted for Sinn Féin and Labour in the past.

I wouldn’t go near the others – they can fuck off.

It’s about right and wrong’ event at The Grand Social. The event raised thousands of euro towards the cost of shipping medical supplies, clothing and toys that had been donated across Ireland to Gaza.

“That was very close to our hearts,” Derek explains. “You know when something is wrong.

If you question Israel you’re called anti-Semitic.

You’re not; you’re just seeing defenceless people in an enclosed space being bombed and they can’t go anywhere. You just know that’s wrong.”

As Derek heads back to The Foggy Dew he 5 Derek says one of the most memorable gigs was The Bionic Rats supporting Madness at Tripod in 2008 makes sure to give a shout-out to the people who turn up to their gigs every week as well as to Jero Roche and Joe Behan of the Ska Patrol show on Dublin’s NEAR FM radio. The weekly ska, reggae and rock-steady programme has been on the air every Monday night since 1999. “They’ve been giving great exposure to the ever-growing Irish ska and reggae scene for so long.”

The Bionic Rats’ new album, Another Fine Mess, will be released in February, available on digital download or CD format from www.thebionicrats.bandcamp.com

Bionic Rats albums deal with racism, Garda brutality and day-to-day life in the Irish capital

18 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

Owning the pain we have caused REVEREND

EARL STOREY

5 One million people were murdered during the Rwandan genocide

SOMETIMES it is because churches are places of Later I discovered that in the church were those such beauty or history that silence is the only orphaned and widowed by the genocide. Also there appropriate response. Sometimes – but not always. were people who by action or silence had committed Nyarubue Church is no ordinary place. Not now.

Set in a village high in the hills of eastern Rwanda, it was a place that thousands of people fled to in 1994.

As a church, surely it would provide a place of sanctuary for people fleeing genocide? In a country and at a time when neighbour was turning against neighbour it seemed to offer one of the few places of safety and security. Such was not to be the case.

Over a short space of time the church and its environs became thronged with terrified people. It was at such a time that someone gave the word to the militias. What followed was an attack on the church in which over 25,000 people were murdered. What was meant to be a sanctuary became a mass killing ground. Some of those who ought to have been protectors had in fact been the betrayers.

It is a brutal fact that during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda the machete was most often the weapon of choice. In the space of one hundred days, approximately one million people were murdered in this country. Perpetrators did not come from afar. Murder, rape and maiming were committed by fellow citizens.

It was quite literally a case of neighbour against neighbour. On occasion it was even family member against family member. What prompts the citizens of a country of approximately eight million people to such acts of intense madness?

It was in 2004 that I visited Rwanda. It is always easier to preach a difficult message of reconciliation to someone else in a far away place. On my first Sunday I was guest preacher at a local parish. My sermon was on the story of The Good Samaritan. Jesus was explicit about what was needed to inherit eternal life – to love God more than anything else, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. For the Good Samaritan, loving his neighbour meant tending to the needs of his Jewish enemy.

such terrible acts. Both sides of the conflict were part of that congregation. To talk about loving your neighbour as yourself, in the terms of the Good Samaritan, was not lost on these people. How far that country has travelled in such a short time towards reconciliation – one of the poorest countries in the world.

I once asked an overseas Catholic monk what he saw when he looked at our country. His answer was immediate and to the point: “What I see is a deeplywounded community.”

The wounds are the wounds of violence. During the years of ‘The Troubles’ I took part in a number of funerals of people killed and visited bereaved families. My overwhelming thought each time was: “If only those who caused this could be here to see the consequences of

5 Earl Storey in Rwanda

5 Nyarubue Church became a killing ground

To be involved in reconciliation means to be willing to take ownership of pain. That is where the really difficult and painful conversation is

what they have done, to witness the raw pain from such a terrible wound inflicted on a family.” It was not about revenge but about appreciating the cost of violence on another human being.

More recently I was really taken by surprise listening to a neutral foreign visitor address a gathering. When asked to reflect on the state of the Peace Process, the visitor said in a very definite tone, “One of the things you have to come to terms with here is . . . guilt.”

To be involved in reconciliation means to be willing to take ownership of pain. That is where the really difficult and painful conversation is.

In Rwanda, there seems to be an agreed narrative about the awfulness of what happened in 1994. No one tries to justify or excuse what happened. There is no appetite for calling it something other than what it was.

This honesty is a vital part of what makes reconciliation possible. This seems to be absent here. Yet airbrushing the past will impede rather than enable reconciliation.

What is this Peace Process about? Is it about breaking a historic cycle of division, hatred and violence? Or is it to be little more than a breathing space until the next round of fighting? The decision depends on having that most uncomfortable of conversations – where we own not only our own pain but also that which we have caused.

So does the Republican Movement want to be a reconciler? It talks much about armed struggle. Armed struggle is by neighbour and against neighbour. By its very nature it is deeply wounding. Facing and ‘owning’ the wounds caused is the start of a conversation. Anything else is just talk.

“Reconciliation is the only way to live together. The only way to finish our conflict” – Archdeacon John Marara (Rwanda) • Reverend Earl Storey is Director of ‘Hard Gospel’, a Church of Ireland project to help in building reconciliation throughout communities troubled with sectarianism.

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

19

UNCOMFORTABLE CONV ERSATIONS

The unionist predicament over equality Confronted by Irish democracy in the 1918 election and the demand for a republic, the British Government decided to construct against it a pseudo-state in the Six Counties with its own parliament – nobody on the island, nationalist or unionist, had ever called for such a thing

DR PAT WALSH AUTHOR OF

‘Catastrophe and Resurgence: The Catholic Predicament in Northern Ireland’ GERRY ADAMS recently referred to the fact that Ulster Unionists have a big problem with equality.

The question must therefore be asked, why?

Unionism seems uninterested in equality even when and where there is numerical equality between the communities in the North. It is determined to fly the flag over ‘Fenians’ as much as it can and unionism must be seen to predominate in what it sees as its territory, given to it to rule by Britain in 1921. Of course, it no longer rules but the pretence must continue, it seems.

Certainly, unionism has always had a supremacist character which was accentuated by the character of British imperialism. In the 19th century, imperialism held there to be a strict division between “great governing races” and “lesser breeds” (or natives). Ulster unionists saw themselves as the former and the Irish as the latter.

When the demand for Home Rule came to the fore it was the thought that the unionists might become a minority and be governed by an Irish majority that was the driving force behind opposition to even a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.

However, it was what Britain did in 1921 that really enhanced the supremacist character of Ulster unionism.

When confronted by Irish democracy in the 1918 election and the demand for a republic, the British Government decided to construct against it a pseudo-state in the Six Counties with its own parliament. Nobody on the island, nationalist or unionist, had ever called for such a thing.

The unionists had simply wanted the maintenance of the Union by Britain – or, failing that, the Six Counties remaining as they were in the Union. However, Westminster decided that what they called ‘Northern Ireland’ must be constructed, as a place apart.

The thing called ‘Northern Ireland’ had a devious political purpose.

Britain still had its eyes on the bulk of the island and decided to construct something the Irish independence movement would feel it could ultimately possess if it did not go too far in being independent. After the Treaty was signed, governments in the 26-County state had to be on their best behaviour in order to ever get a chance of regaining the Six Counties. As a result, and faced with this dilemma, de Valera and his successors abandoned the Northern Catholics and concentrated on making their own state as independent as possible.

5 Flag-waving is actually a sign of insecurity – it has to be done to reassure unionists that they are still 'British' and still top dog

However, the detachment of the province from Britain had a big impact on Ulster unionism. Life was now of a much more modest and insular character. Being once part of a worldwide empire, the Ulster unionist was now constricted into the single role of mastering the natives in the Six Counties, doing Britain’s dirty work whilst the province was kept ‘at arm’s length’.

The Ulster Protestants wanted to be a normal part of the British state but British policy did not allow it.

Westminster said they must govern the large body of nationalists in their territory from a separate parliament outside the democratic structures of the state.

This is what made the Civil Rights movement so successful.

Ulster unionism could not concede simple democratic demands without combusting. Its mass base, which elected the unionist government in Stormont, had to feel a superiority over Catholics or it would replace its leaders. Caught between the need for reform and its need for supremacy, O’Neill, Chichester Clark and Faulkner all failed and Stormont fell.

Despite gaining the Six Counties, the Union was reduced to the mere symbols of the state – the crown, the queen, the Union flag, etc.

One of the chief concerns of unionists became the

The only place the Ulster Protestant community can obtain real state politics is within a new Irish state constructed on the basis of equality for all its citizens 6 Ulster unionism will not concede simple democratic demands without combusting

flying of flags in the face of Fenians, presumably to show who still has the upper hand.

Flag-waving is actually a sign of insecurity as it has to be done to reassure unionists that they are still ‘British’ and still top dog. It is no surprise then that it has increased since the Good Friday Agreement.

Unless it has predominant rights over marching and the marking of territory, unionism refuses to engage with nationalists. But, in resisting the equality agenda, unionism is helping to fragment the unionist bloc and produce further withdrawal from politics from its middleclass component, accentuating unionism’s ‘yahoo’ and the fundamentalist character that embarrasses it.

The unionist predicament lies in the fact that they are being edged out of the Union.

They are in political limbo and unionism has been unable to resist this process. So unionist politics has been reduced to simply maintaining the remaining inequality that persists between the communities. That is a losing game.

The only place the Ulster Protestant community can obtain real state politics is within a new Irish state constructed on the basis of equality for all its citizens.

In the current situation, all that can be done is defending inequality and defending the indefensible.

20 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

All warfare is inhuman, all warfare is barbaric; the first blast of the bugles of war ever sounds for the time being the funeral knell of human progress JAMES CONNOLLY

BY MÍCHEÁL MAC DONNCHA

Connolly in command as war intensifies THE YEAR 1915 opened with James Connolly in command of the Irish Citizen Army, editor of the Irish Worker newspaper, and acting General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union. He replaced General Secretary Jim Larkin who had departed for the United States the previous October.

As the European war intensified so also did the preparations for an armed rising against British rule in Ireland.

Connolly saw it as his mission to link the most militant section of the labour movement which he now led with the republicans and advanced nationalists.

In October 1914 he shared a platform with Pádraig Pearse for the first time.

He worked with republicans in the Irish Neutrality League.

The British Government started its repressive measures with the sacking of Irish Volunteers military instructor Captain Robert Monteith from his civil service post and his exclusion from Dublin. Then, in December, they banned three newspapers – Sinn Féin, Irish Freedom and The Irish Worker.

Connolly, a tireless writer and producer of newspapers, was determined not to be silenced. He had the The Irish Worker printed in Glasgow.

It was imported to Dublin in containers marked “Glass”. He then resumed his attack on British war propaganda.

On 9 January he warned against the danger of the bosses of Dublin who had locked out the workers in 1913 being allowed to carry on as usual in

5 Slaughter in Flanders

the fog of war to exploit the poor in the city’s slums: “War or no war, those slums must be swept out of existence; war or no war, those slum landlords are greater enemies than all the ‘Huns’ of Europe; war or no war, our children must have decent homes to grow up in, decently-equipped schools to attend, decent food whilst at school; streets, courts and hallways decently-lighted at nights; war or no war, the workers of Dublin should exert themselves first for the conquest of Dublin by those whose toil makes Dublin possible; war or no war, the most sacred duty of the working class of Ireland is to seize every available opportunity to free itself from the ravenous maw of the capitalist system and to lay the foundations for

the co-operative commonwealth – the working-class republic.”

In the 17 January edition of the paper, Connolly quoted international socialist voices against the war. The Leader paper in the USA called it “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight” and stated: “The remnants of the miserable wretches that are freezing in the trenches in Flanders, along the Aisne, in east Prussia, Poland, and a hundred corners of the four continents where mechanical mayhem is being practised on a wholesale scale will crawl back to their homes to find themselves bound out for life and the lives of their descendants to the class of moneylenders who send dollars instead of bodies to the front.”

Connolly quoted German social- warfare; all warfare is inhuman, all ist leader Karl Liebknecht (murdered warfare is barbaric; the first blast of after the war by the predecessors of the bugles of war ever sounds for the the Nazis), who opposed the war in time being the funeral knell of human the Reichstag: progress…

“Only in the co-operation of the “This is war: war for which all the working masses of all countries, in jingoes are howling, war to which all times of war as in times of peace, the hopes of the world are being sacridoes the salvation of humanity lie. ficed, war to which a mad ruling class Nowhere have the masses desired this would plunge a mad world. war. Nowhere do they desire it. Why “No, there is no such thing as humane should they, then, with a loathing for or civilised war! war in their hearts, murder each other “War may be forced upon a subject to the finish? It would be a sign of race or subject class to put an end to weakness, it is said, for anyone people to subjection of race, of class, suggest peace; well, let all the peoples or sex. When so suggest it together. The nation which waged it must speaks first will not show weakness b e wa g e d thoroughly but strength. It will win the glory and gratitude of posterity.” and relentOn 30 January, Connolly asked: lessly, but with no “Can Warfare be Civilised?”, denouncing the hypocrisy of the delusions as British condemnation of Germany’s to its elevat“uncivilised” methods: ing nature or civilising “It would be well to realise that the talk of ‘humane methods of warfare’, methods.” of the ‘rules of civilised warfare’, and all such homage to the finer sentiments of the race are hypocritical and unreal, and only intended for the consumption of stay-at-homes.

“There are no humane methods of warfare, there is no such thing a s c i v i l i s e d 5 German socialist leader Karl Liebknecht

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Fáilte mhor roimh cuairt an Uachtaráin ar an tSín CÉIM THÁBHACHTACH do eacnamaíocht na tíre seo ab ea cuairt an Uachtarán Higgins ar an tSín an mhí seo caite – cuairt a d’fháiltigh rialtas na Síne go fial roimhe is a osclaíonn doirse infheistíocht dúinn ón tSín.

21

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

Agus ag deire thiar is scéal dona Sínigh féin é.

Níl aon cheart againne nó ag einne eile sa Iarthar labhairt go sotalach faoi seo ag seanmóireacht leis na Sínigh faoi.

Ach cé gur maith an rud e an chuairt agus na deiseanna atá cruthaithe, tá sé níos tábhachtaí go mbainfí leas as na deiseanna seo. Agus is cosúil go bhfuil leisce áirithe ar an rialtas faoina leithéid.

Mar shampla siar i 2011cuireadh tús le plean le mol tairgthe Síneach a thógáil in aice le hÁth Luain. Dúradh ag an am go séanfadh an fiontar seo an gá le taisteal go dtí an tSín le tairgeadh na tíre sin a mheas, is go mbeadh an t-ionad mar fhiontar taispeántais do chliantaí ón Iarthair i dtaobh thairgeadh na Síne.

Buntáiste eile, a dúradh, ná go mbeadh ardán ag an ionad seo do mhor-roinn na hEorpa agus do Mheiriceá araon.

Tuige Áth Luain in ionad na Sionainne? Níl a fhios, ach is beag a cualathas faoin bhfiontar seo le trí bhliain anuas cé go bhfuil tógail an ionaid le tosaí an bhliain seo chugainn.

B’fhéidir go spreagfadh cuairt Higgins ar an tSín an spéis arís sa bhfiontar seo.

Sí an tSín an eacmaíocht is mó fás ar domhan sa lá atá inniu ann, agus go deimhin d’fhéadfadh ceangal leis an tSín deiseanna móra fáis a thabhairt dúinne in Éirinn. Tá moladh mor tuillte ag na stáitseirbhísigh a thug na polaiteóirí leo faoin gcuairt seo in ainneóin bhrú diúltach ó Ambasáid na Stát Aontaithe ina leith.

Ar ndóigh rinneadh iarracht cárta na gcearta daonna a imirt le cur isteach ar an gcuairt, ach d’éirigh leis an Uachtarán Higgins difríochtaí faoina leithéid a ardú ach ar bhealach nár chuir isteach ar an gcuairt is ar an dea-chaidreamh idir Éirinn agus an tSín.

Ar ndóigh tá cearta daonna tábhachtach – pionós an bháis mar shampla; ach is fimínteacht ag an Meiriceánaigh labhairt faoi chearta daona nuair nach gcinntíonn siad féin na cearta céanna sa mbaile.

Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience ­– Ibrahim Halawa prison, to the horror of his family who begged him to stop.

South Dublin County Council has written to Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, asking that he demand that Ibrahim be released into the care of his family. Lynn Boylan MEP has repeatedly highlighted the case in the European Parliament and has

Raised in Dublin, held in prison in Egypt since August 2013 on trumped-up charges, 19-year-old Ibrahim faces the death penalty if convicted

BY SARAH HOLLAND ARRESTED when he was just 17, Ibrahim Halawa has been held in prison in Egypt since August 2013 on trumped-up charges. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

He grew up here in Rathfarnham, in leafy south Dublin, attended Holy Rosary Primary School with his sisters, played football with his mates. His primary school principal was among those protesting outside the Egyptian Embassy on Ibrahim’s 19th birthday.

He is an Irish citizen, one who should be attending university along with his friends, who should be doing all the things any other Irish teenager does. Instead, he has been held in cramped, dirty conditions, without food and

5 Councillor Sarah Holland, Lynn Boylan MEP and Councillor Eoin Ó Broin protest outside the Egyptian Embassy in Dublin

without legal representation, for over 500 days.

As we go to press, his trial has been postponed for a third time.

He is being tried along with nearly 500 others in a shameless violation of international law, his human rights completely disregarded, his human dignity ground into the dirt.

Ibrahim has been declared an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience, held solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression. He was arrested after taking refuge in a mosque when Government forces opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters. Around the same time,

Egyptian authorities killed almost a thousand people in the Rabaa massacre. It was a terrifying time for Ibrahim and his sisters, who were also arrested.

Ibrahim was shot in the hand during the unrest and was denied medical attention. He embarked on a hunger strike during his time in

written to the High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs about the case.

We need to do more.

We need to keep sustained pressure on our government to keep intervening with the Egyptian Government on the Halawas’ behalf.

It is up to all of us to demand Ibrahim’s release, to demand that he is returned home to Ireland, to demand that our Minister for Foreign Affairs takes action on his behalf, to stand up for the rights of this Irish citizen.

22 January / Eanáir 2015

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I AM ALONE

WALTER MACKEN never had time for the literati and they never had time for him, but surely the time has come for the Galwayman to be recognised as one of Ireland’s greatest writers.

When Bháitéir Uí Mhaicín died following a heart attack at the age of 51 on 22 April 1967, Irish literature lost one of its greatest talents.

And it didn’t know it.

A storyteller in the tradition of the seanchaí, Walter Macken’s stories came from the people

around him in his native city and county, and in the wider province of Connacht.

They populated his novels, plays and short stories with all their contradictions, fears, hypocrisies, idiosyncrasies, prejudices, lies and secrets in full colour. Macken’s lively characters, smooth narrative flow and subtle plot weaving made his books difficult to put down but it also made his novels appear lightweight.

Never recognised as a literary giant, Macken lived an existence that eluded stereotype, not least by those who believed, in the 1960s, that Irish literature began and ended with W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and the emerging William Trevor.

Macken appeared to be a very public figure, an actor who had starred in two films (Home is the Hero, with Eileen Crowe in 1959; and The Quare Fellow, with Patrick McGoohan in 1962); who strode the stage in Galway, Dublin and New York; who transcended his modest background to project himself as a man of many

WALTER MACKEN

of the morning and he would read it to her. She was the audience.

‘Then he’d spend the afternoon walking or fishing and thinking out the next day’s work and evening reading. He would do that for a whole year and then he’d have a novel. In the middle of it he’d get a huge big depression and he’d wish that he was a train driver again and Mammy would take him out for a walk and chat him up.”

It’s hard to believe that this man, who gave a voice to the ordinary people of Connacht, suffered from a lack of confidence. After all, he had a public profile that was very real to the people of Galway in particular and the west of Ireland in general. The universal Irish Diaspora took him to their hearts because he was one of their own writing, but there was more to Walter Macken than acting and writing.

Galway roots He was born in Galway on 3 May 1915. Ten

months later, his father, a full-time carpenter and part-time actor, was killed in France. The young Macken was brought up by his widowed mother on an army pension in Galway’s tenement streets.

He attended the Presentation school, the ‘Bish’ (one of the local Patrician Brothers’ schools) and the diocesan college St Mary’s, and at a very young age began to write, eventually following his father into drama when he became a member

Time for the Galwayman to be recognised as one

talents. But this was a mask he wore to protect the inner image.

Behind the mask was a sincere family man who had doubts about his talent as a writer because, at heart, he saw himself as no different to the people he had grown up with.

“When I die and they carry out an autopsy on me, I hope that they will see ‘I Am Alone’ engraved on my heart,” he is reported to have said. Without a context, it is impossible to know exactly what he meant. His eldest son, also Walter, a priest, thought he knew but was never sure.

“He’d get up very early in the morning and go to Mass (the only reason I’m a priest is because he went to Mass every day) and then he’d come home, smoke a cigarette, curse his lot and wish he were a train driver. We’d say, ‘Daddy, do you think being a train driver is easier?’

“He’d walk around the dining room table where his old Royal typewriter was laid, curse his lot, then he’d sit down and begin to write. Now he’d write from his head to paper, there was no rough notes or anything.

All the editing was done in his head. He’d write the particular passage and then he’d call Mammy. It would be the end

of Taibhdhearc na Gaillime, the Irish-language theatre, on leaving school.

There he met Peggy Kenny, daughter of Tom Kenny, founder of The Connacht Tribune, and against her father’s wishes she eloped to Dublin and then London with him. They married at Fairview Church in Dublin and went to London, where he worked as an insurance seller – an experience drawn on in his second novel I Am Alone. Two years later they returned to Galway where he resumed acting, producing and writing plays in his native language while attempting to write plays and novels in English.

He had been at An Taibhdhearc [pronounced tiveyark] for nine years, translating the works of the great dramatists, when the news came through that Macmillan in London had accepted Quench the Moon for publication. It was his third attempt at an English-language novel. Macmillan had already published Mungo’s Mansion, his first play in English. His career as a dramatist and an actor was given a new impetus.

Walter Macken can be regarded as one of the greats of Irish literature because he wrote honestly about a period of transition in Irish society, the Celtic nationalism that Seán Ó Faoláin spoke about when he discussed the impact of Celtic paganism on the Ireland of the mid 20th century.

“If the Celtic tradition has given us anything . . . it has given that old atavistic individualism which tends to make all Irishmen inclined to respect no laws and though this may be socially deplorable it is humanly admirable, and makes life more tolerable and charitable and easy-going and entertaining.”

Banned in Ireland

5 The Quare Fellow, with Patrick McGoohan, 1962

Written around the time that I Am Alone and Rain in the Wind were banned in Ireland, these words might easily transfer to a general description of the male characters in Macken’s novels. Stephen O’Riordan in Quench the Moon,

January / Eanáir 2015

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Mico in Rain on the Wind, Cahal Kinsella in The Bogman, Bart O’Breen in Sunset on the Window Panes and Donn Donnshleibhe in Brown Lord of the Mountain.

Each different, everyone of them carrying a cross (another reccurring theme of Macken’s fiction), each atypical to their neighbours and surroundings, Macken used these characters to tell stories that contained morals, which allowed readers not to judge but to sympathise, for his

Doves after it had been adapted for the screen.

In the novel, two children escape their stepfather with a crazy unplanned flight of fancy to find their granny somewhere in Connemara. At every step of the way, when they explained their quest, people helped them, but when Fr Macken watched the film he realised the producers had missed the whole point of the story.

What Fr Macken discovered was another theme central to his father’s fiction. It connected Flight

of Ireland’s greatest writers, says fiction mostly depicted the marriage between idealism and pragmatism. This is seen in all his novels, particularly I Am Alone, but also in his last, posthumously-published, novel, Brown Lord of the Mountain.

Not only did Macken know and write about the people he lived among, he understood how they functioned in their daily rites of passage, and this allowed him to write characters that were as real as the day was long. It was an authentic style no other Irish writer has been able to recapture about the people of rural Ireland.

More than anything he understood that people generally helped rather than harmed each other.

Fr Macken realised this was another theme of his father’s books when he reread Flight of the

of the Doves with his father’s other children’s novel, Island of the Great Yellow Ox, where the children go in search of the golden ox, and he realised too his serious work, especially the first novel in Macken’s historical trilogy, Seek The Fair Land (set in the time of the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland in 1649).

“Cripes,” Fr Macken thought. “What an image.

Wow! The whole image of Seek the Fair Land is a man looking for peace somewhere or other and can’t find it in Cromwell’s bloody Drogheda so he heads for the west. He doesn’t find it there either but he finds it in his heart. That work went through a lot of the books.”

If this is the philosophical element running through the ideological core of Macken’s fiction,

the pragmatic aspect of everyday life is there at the edges. Aengus Ó Snodaigh, reviewing the re-released Brandon editions of Sunset on the Window Panes and The Bogman, summed up Macken’s ability to see under the skin of the people, to understand their everyday fears and feelings, to reveal “the little secrets of life, which are hidden away by the people or the community for fear of upsetting the equilibrium of their way of life”. This wasn’t romantic at all, it was

23

and appreciated his work weren’t in the habit of writing letters or hanging out with the literati.

The Establishment, as it had always done, ignored his work.

Walter Macken, his eldest son realises, was tormented by the ghosts of his country’s and his own past and present, phantoms that would challenge his ability as a writer.

“There were times when Mammy would have to persuade him two, three, four times a year

ROBERT ALLEN instead tough life, how the destructiveness of secrets impacted on communities and individuals.

Secrets played a huge part in Macken’s fiction because they were woven into the fabric of the rural life around him, but if Brinsley McNamara’s The Valley of the Squinting Windows is a tragedy in a literary context and as a moral on Irish society, only Macken’s Brown Lord of the Mountain can be seen similarly.

Macken should have been acknowledged by his literary peers, and if Knut Hamsun was worthy of Nobel’s literary prize for The Growth of the Soil with his depiction of Nordland life, the Galwayman’s body of work about the west of Ireland was equally meritorious.

Unfortunately for Macken, those who read

that he was a good writer. ‘Don’t worry,’ she’d say, ‘of course we’ll survive.’ He would always worry about money. My father was a peasant.

In his blood he was a peasant, you see.”

From this perspective, Macken wrote his stories using a narrative style that was visual, portraying the minute details of the ordinary people of Ireland.

“The little man is important to Walter Macken,” Fr Macken told audiences who came to hear some wisdom about his father. “All his books from the very beginning are full of the little man. They are about everyday people and their everyday battles, their joys and their sorrows, their lives and their deaths, because this is reality for the world of Walter Macken.”

24 January / Eanáir 2015

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www.guengl.eu

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

Juncker’s direct interference in Greek politics must end Commission and call into question the sovereignty of a member state.

“This is undemocratic and anti-European and brings to mind the worst practices of neo-colonialism.

“The Greek people should be left to determine their own political future. If the Greeks decide against austerity and in favour of a social Europe at the next elections then their decision

Commission comments affecting elections would not be tolerated in Britain or Germany “PROVOCATIVE INTERVENTIONS” in Greek politics by the European Commission are objectionable and must be withdrawn, according to Left MEPs in the GUE/NGL group in the European Parliament.

On three consecutive occasions, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Commissioner Pierre Moscovici (Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro) issued statements relating to both the forthcoming election of the Greek President and the next Greek general election.

European Commission President Juncker

Their interventions in Greek domestic politics directly backed Prime Minister Samaras’s “fear-mongering propaganda” against Syriza, the party of the Left that currently tops opinion polls, a GUE/ NGL spokesperson said.

“These unprecedented interventions undermine the authority and political neutrality of the

‘This is undemocratic and anti-European and brings to mind the worst practices of neo-colonialism’ should be respected, especially by the European institutions.”

Greek GUE/NGL MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis asked: “What specific article of the European treaties

gives the Commission, or any other official or institution of the EU, the right to interfere in the political situation of member states, and additionally, to make statements expressing their political preferences about this situation?

“Mr Juncker has no right to behave like a modern John Peurifoy,” he said, a reference to the US diplomat who helped consolidate a right-wing government in Greece in 1950, in the years immediately after the Second World War. The Greek MEP said that if the President of the European Commission ever dared to make such an intervention ahead of upcoming elections in Britain or in Germany, “he could not stand by his position, not even for 24 hours”.

Such “raw” interventions are “a matter of national dignity and democracy”, he added.

Addressing Commission President Juncker directly, he asked: “Do your views constitute an official position of the European Commission and, if so, what were the procedures for this decision and what was the position taken by other member states?”

Failure ‘not an option’ for Turkish/Kurdish peace process rights and the peace process within Turkey.

The responsibilities of the Turkish Government in terms of fighting against the Islamic State and supporting the rights of Kurds have also been elaborated.

“We’re standing up for solidarity with the Kurdish people. The European Parliament should adopt a clear-cut position and call for

11th International Conference on the European Union, Turkey and the Kurds NGOs, civil society experts and progressive political representatives from all sides in the EU, Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East gathered in the European Parliament last month for the 11th International Conference on the European Union, Turkey and the Kurds.

Conference patrons included Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, South Africa; Dr Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Iran; Bianca Jagger, Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation; Professor Noam Chomsky, writer, USA; Yasar Kemal, Writer, Turkey; Vedat Turkali; writer, Turkey; Leyla Zana, European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Rafto Prize Laureate, Turkey.

This aim of the conference was to provide a positive setting for discourse between all sides on the key issues.

One of the main issues up for discussion was the need for meaningful constitutional reform, including the extension and development of the Turkish reform package. The conference heard calls for fundamental constitutional reforms in Turkey to ensure fair treatment for minorities, especially the Kurdish people.

GUE/NGL President Gabi Zimmer said following the conference: “This week we have put the focus on human

in Norway.

‘The release of Abdullah Öcalan is necessary for talks to bring results and one cannot enter talks as a prisoner’

Former GUE/NGL President

Francis Wurtz

the removal of the PKK from the anti-terror list of the EU,” she insisted.

Former GUE/NGL President Francis Wurtz said the Turkish/Kurdish peace process was currently “between doubt and hope”. “Failure is not an option. The release of Abdullah Öcalan is necessary for talks to bring results and one cannot enter talks as a prisoner.”

Wurtz was presenting a report of the fact-finding mission of the International Peace and Reconciliation Initiative (IPRI) on the peace process relating to the Kurdish question in Turkey alongside Judge Essa Moosa (South Africa), civil society activist Osman Kavala (Turkey) and Professor Kariane Westrheim of the University of Bergen

Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan

January / Eanáir 2015

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25

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip Liadh Ní Riada

The room for the TTIP conference was packed as Gabi Zimmer opened the event, MEPs and activists with one million signatures against TTIP as a birthday gift for Jean-Claude Juncker

Anti-TTIP movement comes together in European Parliament Co-operation is essential in the fight against these trade agreements.”

Activists, national and regional parliamentarians, trade unionists and civil society from both sides of the Atlantic attended the conference.

Among the keynote speakers were TNI President Susan George, Priscilla Bittar (Conseil central du Montréal Métropolitain), and Dr Michael Efler, a representative from the Stop TTIP European Citizens’ Initiative.

Gabi Zimmer continued: “The fight is not just about trade – it’s about democracy, social rights, the environment, and cultural diversity. In short, it is about how we want to live in the future.”

MEP Helmut Scholz said: “We need to defeat agreements that are

#StopTTIP #StopCETA #StopTISA

LEFT MEPs put forward the case for a citizens’ trade agenda last month at a special conference in the European Parliament, co-organised by the GUE/NGL group and the Transnational Institute (TNI).

GUE/NGL President Gabi Zimmer opened the conference, stating that this conference was crucial as it ensures that ruling elites see that there is resistance to their policies. She said: “TTIP is an important focal point of our protest, but at the same time we must also fight TISA, CETA, and the TPP*. All these agreement are a threat to transparency and democracy and are designed to reinforce a transatlantic power bloc that favours corporate power over people.

Coherent policies needed to combat illegal wildlife trade LYNN BOYLAN has spoken in Strasbourg in support of full EU participation on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). With 180 state parties, CITES provides an international framework to protect over 35,000 species of animals and plants.

The Dublin MEP said: “According to ‘United for Wildlife’, the illegal wildlife trafficking is the fourth most lucrative global crime after drugs, humans and arms.

“We need a strong plan to combat this problem. It is well recognised that the EU is both a transit route and a destination for this illegal trade but the vast majority of this illegal trade is carried out in the developing world and conflict zones.

‘The sad fact of the matter is that the extreme poverty of many African communities lends itself to this trade. When the tusks of a single adult elephant are worth more than ten times the average annual income in many African

‘22,000 African elephants were killed for their ivory in 2012 alone’

countries is it any wonder that impoverished people see wildlife as a valuable barter for trade.’

The European Union should, of course, support these countries where equipment, training and funds for enforcement are often lacking, Lynn Boylan said, “but we must also look at the bigger picture”.

EU policies on trade and its facilitation of multinational corporations to evade paying tax in developing countries is deepening inequality and poverty and further destabilising regions which only feeds into the hands of the illegal wildlife traders.

“These countries must be supported to develop their own economies and to create the situation where wildlife is seen as a community asset. One of the best ways for this to happen would be to ensure that multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes in these countries.”

TTIP

(Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)

TiSA

(Trade in Services Agreement)

CETA

(Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement)

TTP

(Trans-Pacific Partnership)

clearly not in the interests of citizens. They do not want to be sold out in ‘Investor-toState’ dispute settlements. They do not want to put their public services at risk. They want to maintain control over food quality and labour standards. Together we will strive for a citizens’ trade agenda.

MEP Eleonora Forenza said: “TTIP’s liberalisation agenda will undermine public services and social rights such as public healthcare, environmental protection, and labour standards. This is why we are working with a strong and growing movement of policymakers, social movements and NGOs on an alternative trade mandate that puts people and the planet before big business. EU trade policy needs to be fundamentally democratised as part of a wider democratisation of Europe – this is our mission.”

MEP urges Irish Government to stop buying from Israeli military suppliers MEP Martina Anderson has called on Irish Defence Minister Simon Coveney to publicly pledge that he will not sign any military contracts with Israeli companies.

Anderson, Chair of the European Union’s Delegation to the Palestinian Legislative Council, was speaking as Minister Coveney was embarking on a pre-Christmas trip to the Middle East to visit Irish Defence Forces units serving on peace-keeping duties. It included a visit to Israel.

Martina Anderson The Irish MEP said: “I am calling on the Defence Minister to publicly state the Irish Government will end its practice of buying military equipment from Israeli firms and that it will not sign any new contracts.

“Since 2011, the Irish Government has paid almost €3million for military equipment to an Israeli firm which provides equipment for the Apartheid Wall around the occupied West Bank.

“This practice must end.”

Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Lynn Boylan

are MEPs and members Irish Government of the has paid millions for GUE/NGL military equipment to firm responsible Group for Apartheid Wall in the around the occupied European West Bank Parliament

26 January / Eanáir 2015

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JANUARY MARKS THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL EPISODES IN THE CONFLICT

The killing of a republican

BY LAURA FRIEL

JOHN FRANCIS GREEN 18 December 1946 - 10 January 1975 JOHN FRANCIS GREEN was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, on 18 December 1946. He was the third child of Edward and Kathleen Green. A married man, he and his wife Ann had three children, Ursula, Gerard and Frances.

A member of the North Armagh Brigade of Óglaigh na hÉireann, he was arrested in December 1972 and interned on the prison ship Maidstone and later in Long Kesh until his escape in September 1973, dressed as a priest. His younger brother, Leo, was also imprisoned and took part in the 1980 Hunger Strike.

Forced to live on the run, he stayed in the Monaghan and Castleblayney areas where he remained active with the IRA, returning periodically to his native Lurgan.

On the evening of 10 January 1975 he left Castleblayney and drove to a farmhouse at Mullyash, where he had been staying.

He spoke to the farmer and indicated that he was going to have a shave while the farmer went to tend a neighbour’s cattle.

When the farmer returned he found John Francis lying at the bottom of the stairs, having been shot a number of times. His killers, believed to be a combination of British Army Intelligence, Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers and unionist paramilitaries, had left a number of live bullets on top of his body Thousands of people attended John Francis’s funeral which had an IRA guard of honour. He is buried in the Republican Plot in St Colman’s Cemetery, Lurgan.

FORTY YEARS after the assassination in County Monaghan of John Francis Green, exactly which arm of the British state was behind this cross-Border violation of a neighbouring state’s territory and the execution of an Irish citizen is still shrouded in mystery and secrecy.

The finger of suspicion points at Captain Robert Nairac, the SAS, and British Intelligence chiefs at British Army HQ in Lisburn under direct control from Whitehall and 10 Downing Street.

AT A REMOTE MOUNTAINSIDE farmhouse one bleak January night, the body of a young man, shot dead and lying in a pool of blood, was discovered by a farmer returning home after milking a neighbour’s cow. The farm was south of the border, on the slopes of Mullyash Mountain, County Monaghan. The dead man was a prominent IRA leader, John Francis Green, O/C of the 2nd Battalion, North Armagh Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann.

John had escaped from Long Kesh three years earlier. It was 10 January 1975. Less than three weeks prior to the shooting, the Republican Movement, engaged in peace talks with a group of Protestant clergymen, had announced a ceasefire.

On a sad sullen January day The faceless men in British pay, Came to murder brave John Francis Green...

This month marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most controversial killings in the conflict.

Even at the time, events leading up to the IRA man’s death indicated the killing was the work of a British assassination squad. Weeks prior to the shooting, and despite the fact that the farmhouse was located over a mile south of the Border, it had been a target of intense crown forces activity.

When a squad of armed British soldiers invaded the 26 Counties and raided the farmhouse of a citizen of the Irish state, the Garda responded by

5John Francis Green was shot dead at a remote farmhouse in County Monaghan

politely escorting the soldiers back across Border.

Incursions by a British Army helicopter, which circled the farmhouse several times, evoked little response from a compliant Irish Government.

Undercover British Army officer Captain Robert Nairac told British Military Intelligence whistleblower Fred Holroyd that he had killed John Francis Green But the controversy which surrounded the killing at the time paled beside the revelations which were to follow almost a decade later.

A series of articles by world-renowned British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell in the New Statesman in 1984 exposed Britain’s ‘dirty war’ in Ireland.

According to Campbell, 1975 had been a time of bitter rivalry between different parts of the British counter-insurgency apparatus in the North of Ireland. When Fred Holroyd, a key player in the British military and security services’ covert activity, fell foul of that rivalry, he emerged as a whistleblower. He was later to write of his experiences in his book War Without Honour: True Story of Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland.

According to Holroyd, during a routine meeting with covert British military intelligence operative Captain Robert Nairac in Portadown, Nairac claimed that he had killed John Francis Green. To support his claim, Nairac had produced a colour Polaroid photograph of the dead IRA man taken soon after his death. According to Campbell, a Garda photographic team travelled up from Dublin the morning after the killing and took pictures using standard black and white film.

A senior Garda source said no Garda officer in the area had the equipment to take a Polaroid photograph.

Nairac also detailed the killing. He described

John Francis Green 40th ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION COUNTY MONAGHAN

Sunday 11 January 2015 (3pm sharp) AT JOHN’S MONUMENT ON THE KEADY ROAD (JUST OUTSIDE CASTLEBLAYNEY TOWN)

Speaker: Martin Ferris TD

5 John Francis Green was interned in 1972 but escaped from Long Kesh in September 1973

January / Eanáir 2015

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5 One of the weapons used to kill John Francis Green was later used in the Miami Showband Massacre

5 British Intelligence operative Robert Nairac how he and two other men had crossed the Border, driven down a country lane and waited until the farmer had left Green alone in the house.

Nairac described two of them watching Green through an uncurtained window before kicking down the door and repeatedly shooting Green, emptying one gun into his body as he lay dying. A Garda investigation into the killing later confirmed many aspects of Nairac’s account. Forensic reports established two guns were used. One was a Spanish made Star automatic pistol later linked to four sectarian murders carried out between 1973 and 1976, including the Miami Showband massacre.

Ex-BBC journalist Anne Cadwallader, now a case worker with the Pat Finucane Centre, in her 2013 book Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, writes that the weapon “had originally been the legal personal protection firearm issue to a UDR private, Robert Winters, a founding member of the modern UVF”. Winters claimed he had been mugged in Portadown and his weapon stiolen.

In July 1987, the story of Nairac’s involvement in the Green killing dramatically surfaced again when British Labour MP Ken Livingstone used his maiden speech in the House of Commons to

A Garda investigation into John Francis Green’s killing later confirmed many aspects of Nairac’s account expose aspects of Britain’s dirty war. A counter-offensive began almost immediately. Within days of the Livingstone speech, a number of journalists were approached by the Cabinet Office and, off the record, warned Holroyd and another British whistleblower, former British Army officer Colin Wallace, a senior psychological warfare specialist at British Army HQ, were ‘unreliable’.

In late July, Chris Ryder, a former Belfast correspondent who had fled to England after a story he wrote alleging IRA embezzlement was exposed as British propaganda, offered The Sunday Times a scoop.

A Polaroid photograph of Green, allegedly the same photograph passed to Holroyd from Nairac, was offered to The Sunday Times. The

5 Colin Wallace (left) with Field Marshal Lord Alexander of Tunis

5 Fred Holroyd's book ‘War Without Honour’

UVF man who blew himself up during the Miami Showband Massacre.

According to Weir, the loyalist death squad was part of a covert murder conspiracy initiated by the British SAS and other undercover units. In an article by Liam Clarke in The Sunday Times in February 1999, Weir claimed that Green had not been the intended target. It was the farmer, Gerry Carville, who had been selected for assas-

5 Reports in Republican News and An Phoblacht from the time also reported on the controvertial death of IRA Volunteer James Moyne in Long Kesh

According to former RUC officer John Weir, the loyalist death squad was part of a covert murder conspiracy initiated by the British SAS and other undercover units

5 The Independent's David McKittrick

photograph, Ryder claimed, was taken by gardaí and proved Holroyd’s account was unreliable. The Sunday Times refused to run the story, believing it to be ‘black propaganda’. The photograph story surfaced again a few months later, this time in the London-based Independent via their Shankill-born correspondent, David McKittrick.

McKittrick claimed the Polaroid photograph which had connected Nairac to the Green killing had in fact been taken by the Garda and a copy sent to the RUC. The message was clear: the possession of such a photograph did not implicate Nairac or British Military Intelligence in covert assassinations south of the Border.

In a full-page ‘exposé’, McKittrick attempted to undermine Holroyd’s credibility. In the shortterm, McKittrick’s article succeeded, but the story of Green’s assassination just wouldn’t die with him.

Later revelations by former RUC officer John Weir identified Green’s murderers as Ulster Volunteer Force members in Portadown. According to Weir, the killers were Robin Jackson, the notorious loyalist killer known as ‘The Jackal’; Robert McConnell, an Ulster Defence Regiment soldier later executed by the IRA; and Harris Boyle, a

sination. The death squad believed that another UDR soldier, James Elliot, shot dead in April 1972, had been held at the farm prior to his execution by the IRA. Shortly after Weir’s account appeared in the media, a former girlfriend of Robert Nairac reiterated the claim that the British SAS man had indeed been Green’s killer.

Forty years after the killing of John Francis Green, a married man with three young children at the time of his death, his family and friends still do not know the truth behind his death. Requests by the family for an inquiry have been ignored.

After Nairac’s death, during the 1977 trial of his alleged killers, Nairac’s commanding officer told the Dublin court that a “personal pistol’’ (apart from his official-issue Browning automatic) had been found in Nairac’s room after his death.

It has never been established whether the weapon referred to in court was the same as the weapon used in the Green killing.

It is not known if Nairac fired the fatal rounds himself or merely provided the weapon to a notorious unionist/UVF/UDR gang operating at the time and closely associated with Nairac.

It is not known where the genesis of the cross-Border operation came from. Was it from the ‘spooks’ at British Army HQ in Lisburn and their political leaders in Whitehall?

John Francis Green’s family is still seeking answers.

5 The funeral of Volunteer John Francis Green on its way to St Colman's Cemetery, Lurgan

28 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Above the law

THIS is a rather strange little biography from an American academic about a Dublin Guard who became something of an iconic figure over a 40-year period.

The book is strange because it avoids any attempt at objective analysis or criticism of its subject, and instead devotes 350-odd pages to a fawning justification of police illegality and officially-sanctioned violence.

Lugs Branigan was a championship boxer, holder of the Leinster heavyweight title, and a member of the Irish international boxing squad. He was a powerful, trained athlete who, as a matter of policy, would give beatings to suspects rather than arrest and charge them. In his own mind, Branigan confessed to seeing himself as a cowboy figure – John Wayne, the sheriff, riding into town to deal with the baddies. Kevin C. Kearns, perhaps because of his American background, appears to have bought in completely to this idealised and cartoonish world view. There’s Right and there’s Wrong – Branigan versus anyone who opposed him. Never mind Fifty Shades of Grey, this book could have been titled 'Fifty Shades of Black and White'.

It is wrong to consider this work to be a biography. It is a eulogy, almost bordering on becoming a hagiography by turning its subject into a

The Legendary ‘Lugs’ Branigan – Ireland’s Most Famed Garda

By Kevin C. Kearns Gill & Macmillan Price €24.99 pseudo-saintly champion of justice.

It’s Superman with his underpants on the inside.

It is the complete absence of any attempt at objectivity or analysis that makes this book so fundamentally unsatisfying.

Great play is made of the fact that Branigan saw himself as a champion of women, a defender of battered

5 Lugs Branigan in the 1930s

wives and brutalised prostitutes.

Fair enough. All very laudable and seemingly progressive. The fact is that Branigan too was a beater of women if he felt that they weren’t showing him enough respect. This is excused by the author as “the purpose of the slap was to startle and quiet her, to help quell the emotions of those around her”.

I must have missed the bit in crowd control where it explains how beating

A fawning justification of police illegality and officially-sanctioned violence a woman calms inflamed emotions.

Kevin C. Kearns’s contention is, presumably, that Branigan cleaned up the streets and made them safe for ‘decent’ people. What he does not address is the fact that Branigan’s legacy is not peace in our time but a Garda organisation that still views itself as a police force rather than a police service – a force that feels justified in bending or breaking the law if they decide.

The level of official collusion over Branigan’s antics carried on into the 1970s and 1980s with the Heavy Gang and is ongoing with the Shell to Sea protesters, amongst others.

It's a toff's way to Tipperary THE first reaction most people on picking up this book would probably be incredulity at the author’s name.

Can parents really be that cruel? Turtle Bunbury?

A little research shows that this was not the whimsical imposition of sadistic parents obsessed with amphibia but a name selected by the young Mr Bunbury himself. Perhaps he saw himself as a mutant ninja historian,

This could just as easily have been called ‘The Ascendancy at War for King and Empire’ who knows? It is certainly snappier (pun only slightly intended) than his given name of “The Honourable James Alexander Hugh McClintock-Bunbury, son of the Fifth Baron Rathdonnell”.

From that name, it doesn’t take a lot of thought to deduce that Mr Bunbury is a product of the higher echelons of Anglo-Irish society. And if you didn’t work it out from the name, you soon would from this book.

This could just as easily have been called ‘The Ascendancy at War for King and Empire’. It’s a series of vignettes focusing on different aspects of Irish (or more usually Anglo-Irish) interest. It reads like a weird cross between Who’s Who and a Boy’s Own Adventure story.

There are also some conclusions

The Glorious Madness: Tales of the Irish and the Great War

By Turtle Bunbury Gill & Macmillan Price €29.99 which are not borne out by the facts.

An example of this occurs in a chapter on the British Army song It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.

Mr Bunbury confidently states that it was popular with British and Irish soldiers because “it reflected a yearning for home that was simultaneously poignant and fortifying” and allowed the young soldiers to think nostalgically

of home, wherever it may be. Except that most modern researchers feel that the popularity with British squaddies stems from a London brothel they were well acquainted with which was situated between Piccadilly and Leicester Square on the fringes of the Soho red light district. The premises were run by a formidable woman named “Tipperary Mary”, who gave her name to the establishment – Tipperary.

Mr Bunbury appears to have aspirations to be a popular historian along the lines of Simon Schama, David Wood or Myles Dungan. On the evidence of this book, though, he has a way to go before he reaches their levels of effortless erudition.

January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

I nDíl Chuimhne 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.

13 January 1976: Volunteer Martin McDONAGH, Belfast Brigade, 3rd

29

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 16 January 2015 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

» 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.

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations Pádraig Pearse 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.

KENNA, Seán. In proud and loving

memory of my dear husband Seán.

Missed every day. From his wife Eileen and all the family.

KENNA, Seán. In proud and loving memory of our friend and comrade Seán Kenna, whose anniversary occurs at this time. Always remembered by the Halpenny/Worthington/Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

MUCKIAN, Pat. In proud and loving memory of our friend and comrade Pat Muckian, whose anniversary occurs at this time. Always remembered by the Halpenny/Worthington/Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

STONE, John. In loving memory of Óglach John Stone. “It is found in every light of hope. It knows no bounds nor space. It has risen in red and black and white. It is there in every race.

» 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.

It lies in the hearts of heroes dead.

It screams in tyrants’ eyes. It has reached the peak of mountains high. It comes searing ’cross the skies. It lights the dark of this prison cell. It thunders forth its might.It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend. The thought that says ‘I’m right!’ In proud and loving memory of my dear brother Óglach John Stone and his comrade Óglach John ‘Bap’ Kelly, whose 40th anniversary occurs on 21 January. Forty years away and never more than a moment from our thoughts. From your brother Francis, partner Kate, kids Jennifer, Emerson, Cora and Laoise. Also remembering our dear friend and John’s comrade Oglach Kevin ‘Dee’ Delaney, whose 35th anniversary occurs on 17 January.

Comhbhrón DEVLIN. Sincere condolences to our friend and comrade Johnny on the sad passing of

his father, John. From Wishaw & Motherwell Cairde na hÉireann, Scotland.

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

Brendan McCaffrey, Monaghan/Fermanagh THERE was great sadness in the Monaghan/ Fermanagh area when ex-prisoner Brendan MacCaffrey passed away last September after a long illness, aged 63. Brendan, or ‘Caffo’ as he was affectionately known, grew up in the area around Roslea, County Fermanagh. While his family had a republican history, it wasn’t until his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and the persistent harassment from British crown forces that Brendan decided to join the IRA. Brendan’s main area of activity was his home county of Fermanagh but he also operated in the surrounding counties along with comrades such as Séamus McElwain and Jim Lynagh. After a period of being on the run, he was eventually arrested in January 1974 and sentenced for eight years for the possession of explosives. While in Crumlin Road Jail his wrist was broken by prison warders and he was then transferred to the Cages of Long Kesh where he experienced more brutality from the British state during the burning of Long Kesh.

After his release from Long Kesh, Brendan moved with his wife, Joan, and their family to Monaghan in 1977. Brendan could rightly have decided that his contribution to struggle was over but he rejoined the Fermanagh Brigade of Óglaigh na hÉireann and re-engaged in the military struggle. Struggle for Brendan was not purely military and he also took part in the H-Block/Armagh protests and helped in the election of Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty in 1981.

In 1983, Brendan again found himself imprisoned, this time in Portlaoise. He enjoyed working on handicrafts and became a skilled painter.

Even though Brendan had left school at 14 years of age without any formal educational qualification, he later completed an Open University degree. Brendan furthered his education and developed his artistic skills, often in competition with fellow prisoner and comrade, Lucas Quigley from Belfast.

Brendan was eventually released in 1991 and

returned to Monaghan where he and Joan worked on raising their family.

It was a testament to the esteem he was held in with the turnout of so many ex-prisoners from all parts of Ireland at his funeral.

At the graveside, former Sinn Féin Councillor Eoin Mac Gabhann chaired proceedings and highlighted that Brendan had died on the same day as Ian Paisley but that while Paisley was a reactionary Brendan was a revolutionary.

The main oration was then delivered by ex-POW Seán Kinsella who spent more than 20 years in English jails. Seán made reference to Caffo’s easy style and his unsuccessful attempts to teach Seán fishing. He also emphasised Caffo’s central role in developing the former RIC barracks in Clones into a bustling hive of activity as what is now the Fáilte Cluain Eois ex-prisoner centre.

Brendan was buried beside his late wife Joan.

He is survived by his children Brian, Jackie, Roisín and Francis, and by his grandchildren Brenda, Eoin, Molly Kate and Emily.

Niall Vallely, Newry/Armagh

NIALL VALLELY was an idealist, an activist, a family man, a musician Coming so quickly after the death of his beloved wife Úna, Niall’s passing on 14 December came during a very difficult period for the entire family.

From his time in People’s Democracy, almost half a century ago, through the Civil Rights movement and to Sinn Féin, Niall had a boundless energy, an openness and warmth that made him instantly likeable. And he loved his politics.

It’s easy to be a young radical but there is something compelling about older radicals, about those who keep the faith but who also move with the times. That was Niall – an anti-imperialist who lived in the real world. He was an idealist and a pragmatist whose political views were shaped in the 1960s but never trapped in the 1960s.

He lived his politics every day. It was in his blood.

In so many campaigns over the years he handed out leaflets, talked to people on the doorstep or outside the shopping centre, wrote letters to the newspapers, articles for local news-sheets, and

speeches for candidates and for himself.

He travelled the length and breadth of Ireland, helping to get Shinners elected, including this Shinner a few miles down the road in Louth.

His contribution in the debate on policing at the Special Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in 2007 is fondly remembered. The chair had great difficulty in trying to get Niall to stop talking. He knew the importance and the historic nature of that Ard Fheis.

I knew him both personally and politically for a long time. We were both active in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

August 1969 was a particular tipping point for the Civil Rights movement and for the North. One event had a particularly deep impact on Niall.

He and others had organised a civil rights meeting in Armagh in solidarity with people in Derry’s Bogside, under siege from the RUC and B-Specials.

After the Armagh meeting the B-Specials opened fire, killing John Gallagher, a father of three, and wounding two others.

5Brendan McCaffrey self-portrait

The B-Specials all claimed not to have fired but this was dismissed by the Scarman Tribunal, which concluded that the B-Specials had “no justification for firing into the crowd”.

Through all of what was to come in his life afterwards, the deep sense of injustice, pain and anger Niall felt from the murder of John Gallagher never left him.

Niall also told about an incident in Armagh in the early 1970s when he was beaten unconscious by a loyalist mob and his heart stopped and for a few minutes he was dead. As he told it, he was the only man who fought for Ireland, who died for Ireland, and who came alive again for Ireland!

Humour was very important to Niall.

To you Eimear, Niall and Ruairí, to Nico; to Niall’s grandchildren Saoirse, Maebh and Roisin; and to his siblings Brian, Dara, Mairé and Lorainne, I want to extend my own personal condolences and those of Sinn Féin at your loss.

BY GERRY ADAMS

30 January / Eanáir 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

BETWEEN THE POSTS

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

The case for Casement Park

WEST BELFAST ‘SCROOGED’ AGAIN IT WAS LIKE the ghost of Christmas past. In October 2002, power-sharing institutions stumbled from the blow of the Stormont PSNI raid charade.

Within days, the first significant capital investment in the most deprived part of the Six Counties was jeopardised.

Despite the fact that former US President Bill Clinton cut the first sod on the Springvale university campus, the promised multi-million-pound investment was lost to west Belfast.

Reasons offered never came close to the truth.

Senior civil servants connived with other bureaucrats to abort the plans.

Then came the ghost of ‘Christmas Present’.

Whilst intense efforts were invested towards the end of 2014 to broker a political accord at Stormont Castle, investment at Casement Park was imperilled. A Belfast High Court judge ruled that a planning process had not been conducted properly or lawfully and, two days later, quashed the stadium proposal. The parallels are unmistakable.

5 For more than a year now the gates of the only GAA stadium in Belfast have been locked

The potential for redevelopment of Casement Park to catalyse economic regeneration within the heart of west Belfast is irrefutable You may say that there are differences between the two developments, and that’s obvious. News reports gave the false impression that all local residents objected to the plans. That’s not the case.

Those in court do not speak for me or my family and we live within the area likely to be most affected by redevelopment. There are other neighbours and residents in nearby streets who strongly support the investment package. For us, the short-term disruption is worth it for the long-term dividend for the local community and the Gaels of Belfast.

The potential for redevelopment of Casement Park to catalyse economic regeneration within the heart of west Belfast is irrefutable. Whilst many services in this part of Belfast are in dire need of significant public investment, perhaps one of the community’s greatest assets has been Gaelic games and culture. So this massive injection of spending, jobs and infrastructure

directly into a major organ in community life has transformative value.

Ironically, it was a small group of people – purporting to speak on behalf of the local residents – who held up regeneration. You might ask if the problem is that simple. No. Redevelopment of Casement Park was politicised by others. After all, how can you slam Sinn Féin ministers in a power-sharing Executive for neglecting poverty when the area of greatest poverty is targeted for regeneration?

Both the Socialist Workers’ Party and the SDLP hopped on the bandwagon. This was a case study in “wedge politics”, a concept imported from tacky American politics.

The tactic is to pick a social issue with

had been lobbying for investment in Casement Park in the middle of west Belfast. Another wanted to pickpocket the investment for projects in local areas.

Suffice to say, the voices of support for redevelopment of Casement Park could have and should have been louder and more consistent. The void was filled by a noisy minority of aggrieved citizens

How could the Socialist Workers’ Party and the SDLP slam Sinn Féin ministers in a powersharing Executive for neglecting poverty when the area of greatest poverty is targeted for regeneration?

controversial or divisive potential and exploit it to polarise opinion within a community. Wedge-types pick a side and easily enlist supporters. A case in point is local SDLP Councillor Tim Attwood, who issued a statement in February 2013 welcoming the decision by the GAA to build a 38,000-seater stadium at Casement Park; 18 months later, he was standing outside the court beside anti-Casement litigators with a clenched fist salute! This is despite the fact that the Environment Minister who gave approval for planning permission for the new stadium is also in the SDLP. Whilst some waged wedge politics, others used weasel words. Perverse as it sounds, one elected activist once asked why the MP for west Belfast

and agents provocateurs. Others could explain better why that happened.

Defence of the project was left to Sports Minister Carál Ní Chuilín with able backing by MP Paul Maskey. GAA Ulster Council officers also worked hard over a sustained time. Latterly, assurances from project chairperson Tom Daly that Casement is the only show in town are hugely important.

Hope remains that a fresh planning application and new design for Casement Park will be submitted early in 2015. Existing capacity is 32,000 and to reduce that would be regressive.

For more than a year now, the gates to the only GAA stadium in Ireland’s second city have been locked. They must be opened soon.

2015 REPUBLICAN

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EVENTS & IDEAS THAT LED TO THE EASTER RISING

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ROADS TO

REVOLUTION

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31

PEADAR WHELAN looks at historian Tom Hartley’s latest book in his series,

History of Belfast, Written in Stone GRAVEYARDS are history books in their own right, repositories of information and knowledge that informs the searcher and sheds light on times past.

Belfast historian Tom Hartley’s new book on Milltown Cemetery reiterates that point, as did RTÉ’s recently-aired and acclaimed documentary on Glasnevin Cemetery, One Million Dubliners, featuring former An Phoblacht columnist, the late Shane Mac Thomáis.

In west Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery it could be argued, with real justification, that every blade of grass in the 150-year-old burial ground has its particular story to tell and can make its own claim on one of the many, many historical happenings connected with the place.

As publishers Blackstaff Press proclaim: “Mill workers, labourers, clergy, Italian immigrants, victims of the Blitz, soldiers of the First and Second World Wars, political activists, IRA Volunteers, republicans, victims of ‘The Troubles” – Milltown’s graves are a historical record of the social, religious and political life of Belfast over two centuries.”

I’m someone who visits Milltown on a regular basis, mostly as a tour guide with the republican ex-prisoners’ organisation, Coiste na n-Iarchimí.

Tom Hartley’s meticulous approach to research and cross-referencing has produced a masterpiece.

Buried in Milltown are members of the British crown forces as well as republican activists. The author is a man with a strong republican background and it is to his credit that he treats all those buried there their stories with the utmost of respect.

The irony that sees RIC members, killed by the IRA and buried close to IRA Volunteers who were killed in action through the years before

Milltown Cemetery, rich in people’s lives

5 It can be argued that every single blade of grass in the 150-year-old burial ground has its particular story to tell

and after partition, is part of Milltown’s historical tapestry that Hartley captures brilliantly.

One of those ironies captures the tale of Volunteer Tom Williams convicted and hanged for the killing of RUC Constable Patrick Murphy in 1942.

Murphy was buried in Milltown but it would be almost 60 years

5 Tom Hartley speaks at an Easter commemoration in Milltown

before Tom Williams’s remains, buried in the in Crumlin Road Prison, would be exhumed and reinterred in a family plot in 2000.

As Hartley points out: “Here the complexity of our history cannot go unnoticed.”

What the book also brings to the reader is the bloody reality of our history. The author highlights the story of the unionist pogroms of the 1920s – pogroms that were repeated down through the decades until the 1960s, when the burnings of Dover Street, Percy Street and Conway Street (all the way up to Bombay Street) brought nationalists to a point of no return and fuelled a resistance that brought Stormont crashing down and to where we are now.

Hartley also tells the story of Winifred Carney, describing her socialism and commitment to James Connolly before telling of her marriage to UVF man George McBride (he includes very detailed explanatory information on McBride and the UVF).

Such additional information and detail is an added bonus which fill in gaps in

people’s knowledge, the story of the Fenian William Harbinson being a case in point for me.

Harbinson’s memory is marked on the McKelvey/Harbinson plot.

From Ballinderry, County Antrim, Harbinson served in the British Army but left. He was active in the Fenian movement and arrested on a number of occasions, the last being in 1867.

While awaiting trial in Crumlin Road Prison in September of that year, he died when an aneurysm ruptured. He was 36 years old.

In telling the story of Milltown, Hartley is at pains to point out that “the vast majority of people buried in Milltown are ordinary people but they lived through extraordinary times [they are] the mill workers, weavers and labourers of the working class”.

Alongside them are buried the priests and nuns who were part of the community and as Belfast’s Catholic population grew through the 19th and 20th centuries the influence of the Catholic Church grew with it.

Of the clergy buried in Milltown, the

5 William Harbinson

name of Fr Alec Reid stands out – a man of immense dignity and sincerity whose efforts in the pursuit of peace mark him out as a true champion of the people. His grave is in the Redemptorist Plot, located beside the Republican Plot.

In writing this book and telling the story of Milltown in this companion volume to his study of Belfast City Cemetery, Tom Hartley has chronicled the story of Belfast through its politics and the experiences of its people – the artists, the musicians, the architects and the sports people.

Milltown holds the graves of the famous and the not-so-famous but each grave tells a story. That Hartley has brought so many of those stories together, weaving them with our political and social history with such success, is a remarkable achievement.

• The History of Belfast, Written in Stone: Milltown Cemetery, by Tom Hartley, is published by Blackstaff Press.

Price £12.99.

anphoblacht NEXT ISSUE OUT – Thursday 29 January 2015

IN PICTURES

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 20th anniversary commemoration of IRA Volunteer Pól Kinsella.

Peggy McCourt of the Creggan Monument Committee, Michael Kinsella, Christy Kinsella, Cathy Kinsella (wife of Pól Kinsella), Martin McGuinness MLA, Sheila Kinsella, Councillor Colly Kelly and Councillor Bridget Meehan in Creggan, Derry TOM DOHERTY PHOTOGRAPHY

5 Young Sinn Féin elected representatives from across Ireland taking part in a youth forum in Dublin show their support on the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. Pictured is Senator Kathryn Reilly (front left) with Councillors Patrice Hardy, Fintan Warfield (Mayor of South Dublin), Emma Murphy, Stephen Cunningham, Martin Reilly, Mairéad Farrell, Barry McNally and Lisa Marie Sheehy

5 Liadh Ní Riada MEP and Mary Lou McDonald TD with Tipperary Sinn Féin councillors and reps at a function in Thurles

5 Francie Molloy MP visits St Michael's Irish Centre in Liverpool with Sinn Féin's Seán Oliver and Cairde Liverpool activists

5 Paul Maskey MP with Dr Aleida Guevara at a vigil for the Cuban/ Miami 5 in Grosvenor Square

5 Young republicans out on the streets of Belfast delivering hot food, hats, scarves and gloves to those in need

5 Armagh Sinn Féin activists with Sineád and Seán Óg McIlvenna at a function commemorating their dad Volunteer Seán McIlvenna

5 Gerry Adams TD at the Palestine separation wall. (Right) Laying a wreath at the tomb of Yasser Arafat and making a presentation to President Mahmoud Abbas – See page 4