An Phoblacht July 2013

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National Hungerstrike Commemoration

MONAGHAN TOWN Sunday 4th August – Assemble at 2.30pm on Broad Street

Sunday 4th August – Assemble at 2.30pm on Broad Street

anphoblacht

Sraith Nua Iml 36 Uimhir 7

July/Iúil 2013

Taxpayers laughed at all the way by the banks

WHO KNEW?

» Parades – Dialogue the key » Gaelic games drain » An CIA ag faire ort » Property Tax Bill » Fishing – Last of the hunters

PRICE €2/£2

MÁIRTÍN Ó MUILLEOIR SINN FÉIN MAYOR OF BELFAST

‘I want City Hall to be a welcoming place for everyone’

BONO CARING FACE OF THE GLOBAL ELITE HARRY BROWNE’S NEW BOOK

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IN PICTURES

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WHAT’S INSIDE 6&7 NATIONAL HUNGER STRIKE COMMEMORATION

We are of the legacy of the martyrs of 1981 8 G8 IN FERMANAGH

It’s what they do that counts 9 NORTH BELFAST

PSNI reaction ‘a huge backward step’ 10 SPAD Bill and the witch-hunt against ex-prisoners 11

5 Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill tries a spot of fishing at Lough Fea

‘AXE THE PROPERTY TAX’

Labour and Fine Gael vote down Sinn Féin Bill 13 We need to pull up our socks as Gaeilge 14 Irish politics: A game of two halves 15

5 Paul Hayes and Jonathan O'Brien TD join with communities from across west Cork outside Leinster House to protest against Government cuts to funding and services for rural communities

Outgoing Deputy Mayor of Belfast Tierna Cunningham: A good year ends 20 BOOK REVIEW

Diarmuid Lynch — The last man to leave the GPO 21 REMEMBERING THE PAST

The Sligo strike of 1913 22 & 23

5 Sinn Féin members join with thousands of protesters to march in Belfast against the destructive monetarist policies of the G8 group

5 Olive Sharkey, Naoise, Gerry Adams and Cllr Jim Loughran at new Dundalk office

Shot in the head, imprisoned and tortured – We meet Palestinian peaceful resistance group founder 24 FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

International Federation of Journalists World Congress in Dublin for Lockout centenary 31 Robbie Smyth’s Top Ten Political Films

5 Some of the 40 members of the Mairéad Farrell Youth Committee set up an anti-G8 Camp on the site of the old Andersonstown RUC barracks on Monday 17 June

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Unionist and republican figures at Cardiff forum agree ahead of marching season . . .

‘We commit to resolve our differences through dialogue’ A CROSS-COMMUNITY FORUM organised by the PSNI and attended by representatives from unionist and loyalist parties and organisations, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and church and community figures was held in Wales on Monday 20 May in advance of the marching season in the North of Ireland.

Prominent unionist figures such as Winston Irvine, Mike Nesbitt, Jackie McDonald, John Bunting and Nelson McCausland SEÁN MURRAY engaged in discussion with Sinn Féin’s Seán Murray and Gerry Kelly as well as others in Cardiff.

Seán Murray told An Phoblacht the talks achieved a degree of progress and were “candid, honest and worthwhile”.

That said, there are still challenges ahead, as Murray acknowledges here, and reminds us of the progress made in areas once blighted by invasive parades.

THE ONSET of what passes for our summer season in Ireland heralds the perennial challenges for republicans and local residents’ groups. They are to the fore in defending the right of all citizens to be free from sectarian harassment in all its manifestations. In tandem, they continue to work alongside key stakeholders on developing constructive resolution strategies for outstanding parading disputes.

5 ’Hopefully the Orange Order in Belfast will withdraw their application for a gathering on the Twelfth in Ballysillan playing fields, close to Ardoyne’ the will exists across the board, could also deliver resolutions to outstanding disputes elsewhere.

Facing into this summer, one can detect a number of fresh dynamics. Recent flag protests have set a negative and volatile context for this year’s parades. Initial police inertia in the face of clearly illegal protests and parades undermined

both the rule of law and confidence levels in our new policing dispensation.

It also contributed to the agenda of political unionism and loyalism in seeking to make the Parades Commission both powerless and irrelevant. It is a concern that this scenario could be exploited by anti-Peace Process elements in highlighting contrasting operational approaches

Common sense and calm will isolate the political extremes from both traditions

While they continue to focus on the small number of outstanding disputes, it is important

The Orange Order in Portadown relocated their ‘mini Twelfth’ parade on 8 June. It passed off peacefully

to acknowledge the emergence of non-contentious parades in areas formally mired in contention, such as:Derry City; Bellaghy and Maghera in County Derry; Mountfield, County Tyrone; Crumlin village, County Antrim.

These came about as a result of meaningful dialogue and mutual accommodation which, if

by the PSNI vis-ą-vis their handling of roadblocking protests and marches.

The Orange Order has adopted a new tactic of applying to local councils for ‘gatherings’ on council property in close proximity to nationalist areas at the same time as associated contentious parades. This is clearly aimed at intimidating both the police and Parades Commission as they seek to fulfil their statutory duties around contested parades.

Thankfully, the Orange Order in Portadown withdrew their application for an event in the

5 Seán Murray speaks in Rasharkin in 2009 when 41 loyalist bands marched through the mainly nationalist village

park that borders Garvaghy Road and relocated their ‘mini Twelfth’ parade on 8 June. It passed off peacefully.

Hopefully, the Orange Order in Belfast will adopt a similar approach and withdraw their application for their gathering on the Twelfth in Ballysillan playing fields, close to Ardoyne. In the face of such provocation, nationalists must remain calm but resolute and confident in their own ability to both manage and resolve any and every scenario that may develop this summer.

The stakes are high but the rewards are tangible. The prize is the consolidation of our peace and political processes and the further isolation of the political extremes from both traditions.

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anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht Editorial

Anglo tapes scandal – buck stops with Taoiseach THE Anglo Irish Bank tapes reveal bankers on obscene salaries and bonuses, sniggering about actions that ultimately bankrupted the state.

They have appalled people across this country.

This demands an immediate and appropriate response from the Fine Gael/Labour Government.

It’s clear from the Anglo tapes that David Drumm and others in Anglo were meeting senior ministers. Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin and others in his frontbench who were Cabinet ministers at the time could clear this up quickly enough by telling us what they know now.

Despite the objections of Sinn Fein, these banking elites were rewarded by the Government. Twenty-two of the top 50 executives were left in place. Some of them were given €175,000-a-year jobs. David Drumm, who featured in the tapes, was given a bonus of nearly €700,000 only three months later.

While the Fianna Fáil-led government of the

day allowed this to happen, Fine Gael and the Labour Party continued to protect these bankers and their high-paid jobs.

For all the outrage expressed by the present government at the content of the Anglo tapes, they have done precious little to bring the bankers to account.

Those responsible for the financial scandal and everything that has resulted in the collapse of the economy — huge unemployment, unprecedented emigration and thousands of families struggling to survive — must be held to account for their actions.

Five years on from this shameful episode, not one banker has seen the inside of a prison cell.

Yet ordinary citizens know that if they don’t pay their TV licence or don’t pay a fine they face prosecution.

The Irish people are now demanding action like never before. The buck stops with the Taoiseach.

Policing and parades THE INTERVENTION by Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly in the arrest of a teenager in the wake of the Orange Order’s ‘Tour of the North’ parade on a Friday evening in north Belfast has provoked a lot of comment about the actions of the former junior minister and member of the Policing Board.

Any impartial viewing of the video evidence of 21 June shows that Gerry Kelly was trying to de-escalate a volatile situation in the aftermath of a contentious parade that had breached Parades Commission determinations and in the aftermath of unionist attacks on local nationalist homes.

If the PSNI officers who told the local elected representative they would pull over to the side of the road to take the details of the mother of the

detainee had kept to their word, Gerry Kelly would not have been left trying to stop other vehicles in the convoy and clinging to an armoured Land Rover’s bonnet to avoid falling under its wheels.

Local Sinn Féin MLA and Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín received hospital treatment for torn ligaments in the incident.

Kelly later described the PSNI action as “reckless and dangerous”.

But the bigger issue remains.

The issue of contentious parades will only be resolved when the loyal orders sit down and talk to the residents in the areas they seek to march through.

It can be done.

CONTACT

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

South Armagh Volunteers Day HUNDREDS of republicans gathered in Mullaghban on Sunday 23 June for the annual South Armagh Volunteers Day, a day when people pay their respects to all those who sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom.

A parade by up to 400 people to the Memorial Garden was led by a piper and incorporated colour parties, republican bands, photographs of each of the 24 Volunteers on the South Armagh Roll of Honour and banners of the 13 Sinn Féin cumainn

across the area.

At the Memorial Garden, the event was chaired by Newry/Armagh Assembly member Megan Fearon and wreaths were laid on behalf of the Republican Movement and South Armagh Sinn Féin.

The Roll of Honour was read by Lauren McGivern as piper Paddy Martin played a lament and 24 young people each laid a lily on the monument to remember each of the Volunteers on the Roll of Honour.

Next came a minute’s silence followed by The Last Post and lowering of the flags. Aoife Cumiskey sang the ballad Grace before MP for Newry/Armagh Conor Murphy, the main speaker, paid tribute to “these men on the South Armagh Roll of Honour who are heroes to us because of their deeds and the manner in which they lived their lives”.

The event concluded with a rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann, sung by Ellen Maguire.

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Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh

Agus má tá, an ndéanann sé aon difríocht dhuit?

An bhfuil an CIA ag faire ort?

TÁ AIRD tarraingthe ag Edward Snowden ar dhomhan na faisnéise in athuair leis na liomhaintí atá déanta aige maidir leis an CIA a bheith ag bailiú eolais fúinn uilig ar shuíomhanna na mórchomhlachtaí idirlíon. Ní dócha go gcuireann sé iontas ar aon duine againn go mbeadh a leithéad ar bun, ach is dóigh gur ábhar iontais é go bhfuil sé seo tagtha amach go poiblí i gcomhthéacs an stáid ina bhfuil Julian Assange agus Bradley Manning.

I ndiaidh sceitheadh Manning do Wikileaks agus an síorleanúint atá na húdaráis sna Stáit Aontaithe ag déanamh ar Assange, ag iarraidh é a thabhairt chun cúirte, tá sé deacair déanamh amach céard a spreag Snowden agus fios aige go mbeadh an tóir céanna ag na húdaráis fáisnéise ar siúd chomh maith céanna.

Tá impleachtaí ag na scéalta seo dúinn in Éirinn chomh maith. Tá cuid mhaith de na comhlachtaí is mó idirlín ar domhan lonnaithe anseo in Éirinn. Is léir go bhfuil bainc mhóra ríomhaireachta ag leithéidí Google, Facebook, is araile anseo ar a bhfuil cuid mhaith den eolais seo a mbíonn na seirbhísí faisnéise ag tochailt iontu agus iad ag iarraidh ábhar sceimhlitheoirí a aimsiú.

Is í an cheist ná an bhfuiltear ag cloí le dlithe na hÉireann agus na hEorpa maidir le príobháideacht agus sonraí pearsanta saoránaithe na tíre agus an Aontais? Agus muna bhfuil, an bhfuil dualgas ar Rialtas na hÉireann feidhmiú chun deimhniú nach bhfuil dlí na tíre agus na hEorpa dhá sharú. D’ardaigh mé seo leis an Aire Shatter sa Seanad le déanaí agus dúirt sé gur ábhar buartha dó na scéalta seo faoi na seirbhísí faisnéise idirnáisiúnta agus go raibh sé chun iad a phlé le húdaráis Mheiriceá.

Deir Shatter liom nach raibh sé ar an eolas faoi aon tochailt rúnda digiteach a bheith ar bun in Éirinn, ach dá mbeadh féin an mbeadh an Rialtas sásta gníomhú? Le linn an G8 chonaic muid an ‘gean’ atá ag ár dTaoiseach ar na Poncánaigh, go h-áirithe an Uachtarán Obama.

Dála an scéil, deir an Taoiseach nár ardaigh sé na fiosrúcháin i Seanaid Mheiriceá faoi rátaí cáin corparáide na hÉireann lena dhlúthchara Barack, is beag an baol mar sin go dtarraingeoidh sé féin ná Alan anuas mianadóireacht eolais an CIA in Éirinn. Ní fhéadfaí sin a dhéanamh ar eagla go gcuirfí as don ‘deáchaidreamh’ atá muid ag cruthú leis na Stáit Aontaithe.

Ní haon scéal nua é seo do Rialtais na hÉireann dár ndóigh. Le blianta tá na húdaráis ag breathnú an treo eile maidir le h-eitiltí tríd aerfort na Sionainne a bhfuil gialla nach bhfuair triail ar bord orthu. Tá Aerfort na Sionna ag brath ar an ioncam agus ní ligfidh an ‘realpolitik’ do na h-údaráis anseo clampar a thar-

Edward Snowden

Julian Assange

Bradley Manning

Is í an cheist ná an bhfuiltear ag cloí le dlíthe na hÉireann agus na hEorpa maidir le príobháideacht agus sonraí pearsanta saoránaithe na tíre agus an Aontais

raingt faoi rud chomh ‘fánach’ le ‘cearta daonna’.

Mar sin, cén áit is cóir an line a tharraingt.

An mbeidh an CIA ag faire ormsa anois mar go raibh mé ag ‘googláil’ Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden agus mé ag tarraingt an alt seo le chéile? Má tá an CIA ag faire, nach féídir glacadh leis go bhfuil an rud céanna ar bun ag seirbhísí faisnéise idirnáisiúnta eile chomh maith?

Agus, cá bhfios nach bhfuil Rialtas na hÉireann dhá dhéanamh chomh maith. Bíonn buiséad faoi leith gach bliain a thugtar do ‘sheirbhísí rúnda’ nach dtugtar aon mhíniú air?

Bhí mé sna Stáit Aontaithe den chéad uair ariamh aimsir na Cásca. Stopadh mé i ngach aerfort agus gach seicphointe slándála ar an mbealach agus fuair mé dian-cheistiú maidir le mo thuras –– go h-áirithe agus mé

ag tuirlingt i San Diego, áit ar coinníodh mé beagnach dhá uair a chloig. Is léir gur phioc an córas suas rud éigin fúm a bhí ina ábhar imní don lucht slándála. Ní nach ionadh is dóigh! Fear singil, le sloinne fada Gaeilge, ag taisteal ina aonair ar feadh cúpla lá, agus dár ndóigh –– Seanadóir le ‘Sinn Féín’.

Chuir sin na cloig aláraim ag bualadh cinnte.

Nó, an é go raibh an córas rúnda, a bhfuil trácht ag Snowden air, tar éis aird a tharraingt orm chomh maith?

Cá bhfios?

An ndéanann sé aon difríocht? Ní dóigh liom go n-éiroidh mé as a bheith ag úsáid seirbhísí idirlíon mar thoradh air.

Ach, má dhéanaim mo chuid idirbheartaíocht ar-líne ar fad i nGaeilge an bpiocfaidh sé suas ar sin? B’fhéidir gur fiú dom é a thriail!

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MONAGHAN TOWN

t rs to n es Fi e ld i nti tim he Cou be 26 e th

National Hungerstrike Commemoration

Sunday 4th August – Assemble at 2.30pm on Broad Street CAOIMHGHÍN Ó CAOLÁIN TD was Director of Elections in the H-Blocks general election campaign of 1981 when Kieran Doherty was elected TD for Cavan/Monaghan. Kieran later died on hunger-strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.

In advance of the National Hunger Strike Commemoration coming to Monaghan Town in August, Caoimhghín reflects on the 1981 period and on its legacy, particularly in his own constituency.

THEY WERE the supreme voice of our generation of Irish republicans. They stand shoulder to shoulder with the greatest of our kind in the pantheon of Ireland’s bravest and best.

Their courage, determination and selflessness is unsurpassed by the deeds and lives of the deservedly revered of previous generations.

The dignity of their bearing, despite all the pressures directed at them; their tenacity, despite their keen awareness of the journey they had embarked on; their willingness to make the supreme sacrifice, knowing that, in the words of Bobby Sands, “What is lost in here, is lost for the Republic” – all this humbled us and yet filled us all with pride.

The stand they took and the deaths they suffered was for the cause of the Republic, the Republic declared in Easter Week 1916, the still unrealised Republic of Tone, of Pearse and of Connolly.

Changed lifepaths; changed history The impact of their deaths across Ireland was seismic. The four months of May, June, July and August 1981 were unprecedented in the long story of Ireland’s struggle for freedom and self-determination. The unfolding events in the hell-holes of Long Kesh changed the life-paths of many and, in time, would change the course of Irish history itself.

Today, built on the conviction of our people and the justice of our cause, and ennobled by the sacrifices of Bobby, Francis, Raymond, Patsy, Joe, Martin, Kevin, Kieran, Thomas and Michael, stands a resurgent republicanism with Sinn Féin in the vanguard for change and for the realisation of our destiny as an island nation. Let no one fear to speak of 1981. All has changed, changed utterly.

We are of the legacy of the martyrs of 1981

Seán ‘Atty’, one of those subjected to the notorious ‘hooded’ treatment by the British Army and buried at Clara in his native north County Monaghan.

Séan Senior’s funeral was the occasion of disgraceful conduct on the part of the Garda and Special Branch at the behest of the Dublin government of the day.

Tommy McKearney, from Moy in County Tyrone, had a long association with Monaghan and was a highly-regarded Irish Republican Army Volunteer.

His family suffered terrible loss over the course of the conflict for their staunch republican beliefs.

And Leo Green of Lurgan was a brother of Volunteer John Francis Green, who was murdered near Castleblayney in County Monaghan by undercover British forces. Leo’s brother, Tom, and his wife and family live in County Monaghan.

Campaign Every possible action, protest and lobby was undertaken locally and nationally. An almost weekly column – H-Block/Armagh News – appeared in our local newspaper, The Northern Standard, as did reports of mobilisations, many with photographs.

5 Monaghan Sinn Féin shows its support for the republican prisoners in Long Kesh and Armagh Jail at a demonstration on Grafton Street, Dublin, in 1979 Letter writing to prominent figures in political life, to church leaders of all denominations, to trades union representatives across the region and nationally, to media influences north and south of the Border, and to influential Irish Diaspora voices globally, but most especially in the United States, were all part of the workload undertaken.

The first hunger strike ended on 18 December after 53 days. The initial seven had been joined by 30 more men in Long Kesh and by Mary Doyle, Mairéad Farrell and Mairéad Nugent in Armagh Prison. The decision was taken on the understanding that proposals contained in a document would be interpreted appropriately and implemented.

Once again, British treachery ruled the day.

Monaghan and Cavan It is arguable that nowhere has the impact of 1981 been more demonstrably in evidence than in County Monaghan. With County Cavan, these Border counties responded to the plight of the republican prisoners in Long Kesh and Armagh Jail with the formation of action groups throughout 1979 and in 1980.

While Sinn Féin and Republican Movement voices were hugely influential, they did not exercise dominance over the development of this emerging parallel structure. Other voices from across a range of political backgrounds were also involved. This broadbased approach, and sticking firmly to the prisoners’ demands helped widen the appeal of the developing campaign.

5 Kieran Doherty’s election team hits the road

First Hunger Strike The 1980 hunger strike commenced on 27 October 1980. Among the seven who embarked on that hunger strike were men with strong personal or family connections with County Monaghan.

Seán McKenna, since deceased, was the son of

5 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin addressess a H-Block rally in Crossmaglen

Local elections In the local elections of 1979, Sinn Féin in County Monaghan failed to impact. The party lost its sole seat on Monaghan County Council and returned only two Urban District councillors: one in Clones and one in Monaghan town. A former Sinn Féin councillor was re-elected to Castleblayney UDC but as an ‘Independent Republican’, a consequence of internal strains within the organisation locally at that time. The long-standing Frank McCaughey in Clones and newly-elected Jim Lynagh in Monaghan were Sinn Féin’s only elected standard bearers in County Monaghan out of the 1979 contests. The Monaghan Town seat would become vacant during the term with Jim’s imprisonment and remained so until the 1985 local government elections. Not one of the other eight councillors would propose the notified Sinn Féin replacements, including the former Sinn Féin member of the body, Vincent Conlon. Volunteer Jim Lynagh would, fol-

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H-BLOCK MARTYRS (clockwise from top left)

Group members not only stood strong but their resolve grew stronger by the day.

IRA Volunteer

BOBBY SANDS (aged 27, born Belfast) 9/3/54 – 5/5/81 (after 66 days) IRA Volunteer

FRANCIS HUGHES (25, Derry) 28/2/56 – 12/5/81 (after 59 days) IRA Volunteer

RAYMOND McCREESH (24, Armagh) 25/2/57 – 21/5/81 (after 61 days) INLA Volunteer

PATSY O’HARA (24, Derry) 11/7/57 – 21/5/81 (61 days) IRA Volunteer

JOE McDONNELL (29, Belfast) 14/9/51 – 8/7/81 (after 61 days) IRA Volunteer

MARTIN HURSON (24, Tyrone) 13/9/56 – 13/7/81 (after 44 days) INLA Volunteer

KEVIN LYNCH (25, Derry) 25/5/56 – 1/8/81 (after 71 days) 6 Irish Northern Aid poster following Kieran’s death

IRA Volunteer

lowing his release and return to active service, lose his life in a hail of British bullets at Loughgall in neighbouring County Armagh.

IRA Volunteer

KIERAN DOHERTY (25, Belfast) 16/10/55 – 2/8/81 (after 73 days)

THOMAS McELWEE (23, Derry) 30/11/57 - 8/8/81 (after 62 days) INLA Volunteer

Second Hunger Strike

MICKEY DEVINE (27, Derry)

On 1 March 1981, Bobby Sands embarked on the second Long Kesh Hunger Strike.

The support structure across Monaghan and Cavan had been maintained and strengthened. Yet there was great apprehension and not everyone was of the view that this was the way to go. They were fearful of the possible outcomes.

We had established central offices in Monaghan town and Cavan town. Caravans were placed in a number of key locations in these and other towns that allowed activists meet and plan and conduct 24/7 vigils, irrespective of the weather. The HBlock/Armagh campaign in support of the prisoners’ five demands was ever-present in the lives of the people of Monaghan and Cavan through all those months. Thousands responded positively and generously; others loathed us and what we stood for.

Despite the worst the state could do and the excesses of the Special Branch, despite the condemnations of senior Catholic Church voices and the insidious efforts of those who did all they could to undermine us personally in our respective workplaces, and in a variety of other ways, the overwhelming number of Monaghan and Cavan Action

6 Over 4,000 people attend a protest in Cavan town following the death of Kieran Doherty TD

26/5/54 – 21/8/81 (after 60 days)

Fermanagh and South Tyrone Bobby was joined by Francis Hughes on 15 March and by Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara on 22 March.

On 9 April, Bobby Sands, IRA Volunteer from Belfast and, up to his embarking on hunger strike, the Officer Commanding the Irish Republican Army prisoners in Long Kesh, was elected the Member of Parliament by the voters of Fermanagh & South Tyrone.

It is not possible to properly convey the impact of the news of Bobby’s success. Elated, overjoyed, hardly do justice to the feelings experienced by our activists and supporters. It was a very special moment in all our lives. It would be easier to describe the reaction of unionism and anti-republican voices on this side of the Border. The intensity of their hatred grew exponentially with our success.

Surely now the pressure to resolve the outstanding issues would move British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher? Surely no one would have to die to win the five demands and the restoration of political status?

Volunteer Bobby Sands MP died on hunger strike on 5 May.

Volunteer Kieran Doherty TD On 11 June 1981, 9,121 electors across Monaghan and Cavan made 25-year-old Kieran Doherty, an IRA Volunteer from Belfast and then 21

5 Supporters of Kieran Doherty march in Cavan days on hunger strike in Long Kesh, their Teachta Dála. This was a phenomenal achievement.

The general election in the 26 Counties also saw the election of fellow republican prisoner Paddy Agnew in the neighbouring constituency of Louth.

Other prisoner candidates, including three who would go on to die on hunger strike, recorded significant results in constituencies across the state.

The special relationship that Monaghan and Cavan forged over those difficult months with the families of those who died – but very particularly with the parents, brothers and sisters of Kieran Doherty – lived on and grew over the years that followed. Mother and father Margaret and Alfie became a special part of what we were and what we undertook and sought to achieve. The courage of their son, the dignity of his parents; the impact of these qualities has remained with us over these past 32 years and have, with the spirit of Kieran and all those who died with him, inspired and motivated us to strive ever harder and to always remain focused on the attainment of our republican goals.

We are a mighty force. We are of the legacy of the martyrs of 1981. Onward to victory.

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G8 summit in Fermanagh – The Lough Erne Declaration

It’s what they do that counts THE G8 CIRCUS has left Ireland and left different impressions on a range of people. The heads of governments of eight of the world’s eleven largest economies – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the USA (China, Brazil and India are not included) – have come and gone without riots in Fermanagh or Belfast, but how far-reaching will their words and, more importantly, their policies be?

The speech by President Obama at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall lauding the Peace Process and the visits by his wife and daughters south of the Border – to Dublin City’s Gaiety Theatre, the Glendalough monastic site in Wicklow, and Dalkey for a fish and chips pub lunch with Bono – were well-crafted events snapped up by a media obsessed by celebrity rather than political and economic policy affecting hundreds of millions of people across the globe.

Prior to the G8’s arrival, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD noted that the G8 is “the source of immense wealth and economic and political power” but its policies have been “clearly failing” and have deepened the problems facing many countries.

“This can be seen in growing unemployment, increased poverty, hunger and human rights abuses.

There needs to be an urgent change of direction by the G8,” the republican leader said.

“A more enlightened and sociallyconscious approach would assist those citizens in the developing world to eradicate hunger, malnutrition and preventable disease.”

PROTESTS Protests were nowhere near the scale of previous demonstrations such as at Genoa in Italy in 2001, the largest anti-G8 protest to date, with street battles when Italian anarchist Carlo Giuliani was shot by police and then run over by a police jeep. But there was peaceful public opposition to the G8 coming to Ireland.

Several hundred marched in Enniskillen on Monday 17 June, the first

‘The G8 has come and gone. We now have a Lough Erne Declaration. The developing world still has poverty and hunger, and the Middle East still has war’ GERRY ADAMS after the G8’s conclusion mately, not plundered from conflict zones.

“Land transactions should be transparent, respecting the property rights of local communities.

“Governments should roll back protectionism and agree new trade deals that boost jobs and growth worldwide.

“Governments should cut wasteful bureaucracy at borders and make it easier and quicker to move goods between developing countries.

“Governments should publish information on laws, budgets, spending, national statistics, elections and government contracts in a way that is easy to read and re-use, so that citizens can hold them to account.”

5 G8 leaders line up for a family photo at the Lough Erne resort in County Fermanagh day of the two-day summit. The previous Saturday, 3,000 people – including Sinn Féin activists – rallied at City Hall under the banner of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. (In a reflection of the paucity of vision in working-class unionist leadership, Progressive Unionist Party leader Billy Hutchinson led a small group of loyalists to hurl abuse at the G8 rally’s calls for equality, justice and a better world for all.)

Forty members of the Sinn Féin Republican Youth Mairead Farrell Youth Committee set up an anti-G8 camp on the site of the old Andersonstown RUC barracks on Monday on Belfast’s busy Falls Road to keep the G8 powers in the public eye.

In Dublin, ‘Alternative G8’ events were held, including a march to the American Chamber of Commerce.

DECLARATION The G8 leaders’ meeting in Enniskillen in Fermanagh passed off without major incident except their failure to agree on arming the antigovernment rebels in Syria.

They produced what they called ‘The Lough Erne Declaration’, which fits neatly into ten points.

Extolling the virtues of private

WAR ON WANT

5 Michelle Obama speaks at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin enterprise, and claiming that it “drives growth, reduces poverty and creates jobs and prosperity for people around the world”, the main focus of the G8’s Lough Erne Declaration is on tax havens. It notes: “Governments have a special responsibility to make proper rules and promote good governance. Fair taxes, increased transparency and

open trade are vital drivers of this.”

The G8 say they will “make a real difference” by implementing measures “to fight the scourge of tax evasion” and help developing countries “collect the taxes owed them – and other countries have a duty to help them”.

The G8 also says: “Minerals should be sourced legiti-

War on Want, the charity fighting poverty in developing countries “in partnership with people affected by globalisation, campaigning for human rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice”, said of the Lough Erne Declaration: “If all of these promises become reality this could have an enormous impact on tackling one of the greatest scandals of our time. But there is a long way to go and today all we have is a general statement of principles with no detail and no deadlines.

“As always the devil will be in the detail, and there’s no detail here. Talk of stopping companies shifting profits to avoid taxes is a huge step forwards, but we’ve heard great promises from the world’s heads of state before – it’s what they do that counts.”

5 The Enough Food for Everyone (IF) campaign protest on the River Erne calling for an end to world hunger and (right) 3,000 people – including Sinn Féin activists – rally at Belfast City Hall under the banner of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions

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www.anphoblacht.com

July / Iúil 2013 9

POLICE ARMOURED LAND ROVER DRIVES AT SINN FÉIN POLICING BOARD MEMBER TRYING TO EASE TENSION DURING ‘TOUR OF THE NORTH’ ORANGE PARADE

5 A unionist bass drummer shows how much respect he has for St Patrick’s Church as his band passes

5 Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly tries to find out what has happened on behalf of the mother of a local youth who has been arrested and (below) is forced to cling to the bonnet of a police Land Rover which drives at him

PSNI reaction ‘huge backward step’ VIDEO FOOTAGE by An Phoblacht of the PSNI after the arrest of a teenager during the Orange Order ‘Tour of the North’ parade clearly show that North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly was trying to de-escalate the situation when reckless police action inflamed feelings in a very volatile atmosphere.

It was reported that some unionist elements following the Orange Order parade on the evening of Friday 21 June started to attack nationalist homes in the Peter’s Hill part of Carrick Hill, kicking in people’s doors, and local youths had confronted them.

After last year’s disgraceful scenes at St Patrick’s Church when a unionist band stopped and played The Famine Song at the doors of the Catholic place of worship – an event the Orange Order later distanced itself from – the Carrick Hill Residents’ Association staged a dignified, silent protest with a banner proclaiming “Respect St Patrick’s Church”.

Passing bandsmen broke a Parades Commission determination that only a single drum-beat be played passing the church with at least one bass drummer vigorously pounding out his beat as the band played hymns.

Frank Dempsey of the Carrick Hill Residents’ Association said that some parades participants were seen “spitting at the church, effing the Pope, the lot”. Residents were disgusted, he said.

A 16-year-old youth was arrested by the PSNI for what was described in one newspaper as

“provocative conduct”. His family asked local Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly to find out what had happened. As well as being aformer junior minister in the Executive, Kelly is a member of the Policing Board.

The driver of a PSNI armoured Land Rover believed to be carrying the youth did stop when asked to by Kelly and opened the door to tell the local elected rep that he would pull over to the side of the road to explain and take the arrested youth’s mother’s details. Gerry Kelly acknowledged that and urged bystanders to remain calm and peaceful. However, the PSNI unit instead drove off at speed despite their commitment to the Assembly member.

Gerry Kelly was standing in the road when he flagged down a following Land Rover in a convoy to try and get some answers. The police officers refused to engage with him and the driver instead revved the engine and drove on with him in full view at the front of the vehicle, threatening to run over him.

The MLA was forced to cling to the bonnet as the police vehicle carried him a considerable distance before it came to a halt as crowds ran alongside.

Contrary to some media reports circulated by unionists, Gerry Kelly did not “jump on to” the Land Rover, and this can be clearly seen from the An Phoblacht footage.

Some angry witnesses started to bang on the vehicle but Gerry Kelly told them to stop and a senior officer arrived on the scene. The two men exchanged words as another PSNI officer answered Gerry Kelly’s query by ascertaining that the Land Rover driving at him was not carrying the arrested youth.

Gerry Kelly then thanked the local community for their solidarity, reiterated the need for calm and accompanied the youngster’s family to the Grosvenor Road PSNI station. The 16year-old was later released pending a report from the Public Prosecution Service.

During the commotion, local MLA and Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín sustained shoulder injuries later diagnosed in hospital as torn ligaments.

The episode has been referred to the Police Ombudsman.

Gerry Kelly said later that the PSNI actions on the ground were “dangerous, reckless and provocative”. He added: “This is no way to deal with anyone, let alone elected representatives seeking to restore calm to an area in an already tense situation.

“Only a number of weeks ago I attended a conference in Wales which discussed the PSNI handling of these sorts of public order situations and the impact they have on community confidence in policing. Tonight’s incident is a huge backward step in that process.”

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Opinion

www.anphoblacht.com

BY TOMMY QUIGLEY Former political prisoner

5 Anti-Good Friday Agreement unionist Jim Allister’s SPAD Bill which discriminates against former political prisoners was passed after Alasdair McDonnell’s SDLP criticised it but refused to vote against it

The SPAD Bill and the witch-hunt against ex-prisoners THE Sunday press witch-hunt is on for exA British Army ambulance arrived and two prisoners after the SDLP let Jim Allister’s soldiers attempted to intervene. The soldiers Special Advisers (SPAD) Bill pass. Newspapers had to draw their weapons and force the mob now want to know where do they work and back. Only then was Seán Fox given medical how can ‘we’ get rid of them? attention by the soldiers and put in an ambuApparently it is an affront for an ex-prisoner lance. The RUC man, realising Seán was obvito sing for his living, drive a taxi, or do any type ously still alive, demanded that he go with him of civilian security work, whether it is door in the ambulance. The British soldier would security or drive a car for anyone connected not let him, almost certainly saving his life. to government.

Incredibly, Seán survived. A bullet still sits in his The SDLP has linked the employment of lower back, too close to his spine to operate political ex-prisoners to the victims’ issue. The on, 41 years later.

SDLP line from MLA Conall McDevitt and The RUC men involved were never arrested, leader Alasdair McDonnell is: prosecuted, or convicted of anything and so “It would have been abhorrent to people qualify to be SPADs. across this island, who endorsed the At what lower point on Alasdair McDonnell’s Agreement just over 15 years ago, for a blanpecking order of victims does Seán Fox sit? ket amnesty to have been available to paraWhere do his mother and father and siblings sit military prisoners.” on the lower end of the scale reserved for There are a great many people in Ireland republicans? Does the involvement of both and across the world that abhor the fact that men in the IRA render their parents and sibBritish state murderers have received a blan- 5 ‘Apparently it is an affront for an ex-prisoner to even drive a car for anyone connected to government’ lings undeserving of the status of victims? ket amnesty and immunity from prosecution SDLP veteran Seamus Mallon’s intervention Albert Kavanagh was an unarmed IRA the chest. Believing that Seán was dead, the in this process is unsurprising. throughout their entire history of interference in this country. During the negotiations of the Volunteer on a bombing mission of a tele- RUC man went back towards Albert, who was For him, republicans and nationalists must Good Friday Agreement, the SDLP had the phone exchange on the Boucher Road in now viewed as a witness to a summary exe- accept that elements of the Good Friday Belfast. It was March 1972, the cution. chance to highlight that issue Agreement can be ignored if worst year of the conflict. He was At Albert’s inquest, the forensic and abhorrence but chose not to, some unionists object to their 18 years old. A warning was evidence showed that he had as when previous ministers had implementation. given. been shot twice in the back – the life-sentence prisoners as Special Seamus Mallon tried to sideline Along with his comrade, Seán RUC man who shot him claimed Advisers.

Sinn Féin out of the negotiations Fox, their escape route was cut Albert had been running towards Paul Kavanagh spent 16 years process that brought about the off by armed members of the him when he shot him! None of in jail. His brother, Albert, was Good Friday Agreement.

RUC paramilitary police force. this evidence was challenged. killed on an IRA operation. Paul According to him, they were irrelSeán jumped a chain-link fence Seán Fox was not allowed to Kavanagh is “well down the peckevant. but was shot in the back after appear or give evidence at the ing order” when it comes to the The Peace Process would never running a few yards. As he lay on inquest. hierarchy of victimhood, the SDLP have got started if John Hume the ground, unable to move, he As Seán lay on the ground, a says. How far down the pecking had bowed to Seamus Mallon and Paul Kavanagh Seamus Mallon could see Albert standing on the unionist mob from the nearby order are Albert Kavanagh’s his kind. But John Hume did not mother and father? At what point on the other side of the fence with his hands in the Village area surrounded him, piled wood on give up. These are changed times, Seamus SDLP descending scale of victimhood do Paul’s air. The RUC man who shot Seán approached top of him and attempted to set him on fire. should realise – and so should Jim Allister and him, stood over him and shot him five times in The RUC killers looked on. siblings rank? Does his family rank at all? the other unionist parties.

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July / Iúil 2013 11

PEARSE DOHERTY’S BILL TO AXE THE PROPERTY TAX VOTED DOWN BY GOVERNMENT

Labour TDs toe the Fine Gael line to support tax on family home

BY MARK MOLONEY FINE GAEL and Labour TDs were left rattled in the Dáil during a stinging debate on a Sinn Féin Bill that could have seen the Property Tax scrapped and people who have paid refunded.

Sinn Féin and Independent TDs gave the Government benches both barrels as Labour and Fine Gael representatives floundered to deliver a coherent argument as to the benefits of taxing the family home. Some mininsters, such as Brian Hayes, only briefly appeared in the chamber to deliver their speeches before scurrying off to avoid the withering responses.

Moving the Local Property Tax Repeal Bill, Pearse Doherty highlighted the hypocrisy and doublespeak of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, both of whom had outlined their strong opposition to

5 Pearse Doherty TD speaks to protesters outside Leinster House ahead of the vote 5 Sinn Féin TDs and representatives show their opposition to the Family Home Tax

Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor said it is ‘unthinkable for my constituents to be forced to subsidise Deputy Doherty’s flock’ taxing people’s homes before entering government. Doherty said there was tremendous anger against the Government and this anger will only increase as this tax imposes an additional burden on families.

The main defence employed by Environment Minister Phil Hogan and the smattering of Government backbenchers who were finally allowed to open their mouths in the chamber was to point to the rates system in the North and claim it is a Property Tax. The Government reps failed to men-

tion that rates actually pay for services including bin collections, school books, water, community centres, GP bills, street cleaning, emergency services, septic tank de-sludging and many other services which are paid for separately in the South.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh said it was “great to see Fine Gael and Labour

5 Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes, Phil Hogan, Mary Mitchell O’Connor and Paudie Coffey

finally taking an interest in the Six Counties” while Peadar Tóibín added: “There is a book in Easons entitled, The Idiot’s Guide to Constitutional Politics which explains clearly at Junior Certificate level the difference between the situations in the North and South of Ireland. We do not have fiscal powers in the North of Ireland.

We are doing our damnedest to get them back and it would be great if the Minister got off his arse and helped us as well.”

Cork East Sinn Féin TD Sandra McLellan also hit out at the diversionary tactics by the self-styled “United Ireland Party”, saying: “Fine Gael can blather on all they like about Sinn Féin in government in the Six Counties, an entity that does not control its own purse strings, but the fact remains that the policies of the Fine Gael and Labour Government are wreaking havoc on the lives and futures of people in every corner of this state.”

Throughout the debate, Minister Phil Hogan and his cronies spent their time childishly heckling and taunting those who spoke out against taxing the family home. During Gerry Adams’s four-minute contribution he was interrupted no fewer than 15 times.

Fine Gael’s Mary Mitchell O’Connor made a big fuss of how her constituency of Dún Laoghaire is the most compliant while Donegal has the lowest number of people willing to pay.

She says it is “unthinkable for my con-

stituents to be forced to subsidise Deputy Doherty’s flock”.

In a fact-free contribution, Fine Gael’s Paudie Coffey said the unfair tax is a “progressive measure”. Cork Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien responded by

‘This tax doesn’t discriminate between rich or poor. It punishes the poor and those on low incomes’ saying the Government “dipping their hands into the pockets of people who have lost their jobs and are struggling to support themselves is regressive, disgraceful and despicable”.

Laois/Offaly Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley highlighted how the Property Tax was originally “Fianna Fáil’s bright idea” and is now being implemented

by Fine Gael and Labour.

“This tax doesn’t discriminate between rich or poor. It punishes the poor and those on low incomes,” he said.

Dublin South West’s Seán Crowe said struggling families felt intimidated into paying, noting that the tax – which he described as “arbitrary and crude” – will increase fuel and child poverty.

Addressing Labour TDs directly, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan/Monaghan) said: “Fair taxation based on ability to pay is a just demand and one that you championed over many years. And make no mistake, in government, unlike Labour, we will damn well implement it.”

Despite the Bill being defeated by 81 votes to 49, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald promised that, in government, Sinn Féin will axe this unjust tax and she pledged to continue to campaign against it.

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‘History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again’ MAYA ANGELOU

BY DECLAN KEARNEY SINN FÉIN NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON MAYA ANGELOU wrote that “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again.”

Her words have relevance for us at this time.

The legacy of our political conflict and how to deal with it overshadow the Peace Process.

For now that is set to continue with all its attendant political and societal consequences.

Last month, however, Barra McGrory, the Director of the Prosecution Service in the North, said during a speech to a Belfast conference: “If a decision is to be taken that true healing and political progress cannot be made unless or until the past is confronted we must decide in which way that is going to be achieved . . .

If, however, this society is to make a decision, the past is to be laid to rest then I believe it needs to do so soon so that we all know where we stand.”

His comments arguably signal an approaching watershed on how we should deal with the past. Central to that is whether both justice and truth can be delivered for victims and survivors, and how this should be achieved.

There are victims and survivors on all sides.

They want different things. Their demands and expectations have equal validity and deserve equal respect.

There is no hierarchy of victims or humanity.

The many campaigns for justice and truth in the republican/nationalist community arise from a context of impunity and immunity from prosecution for the wrongdoing of British state agencies and personnel, in contrast to over 100,000 years served in jail by republicans.

The past has become a political weapon to refight old battles and resist change. There is not, and may never be, a consensus.

Sinn Féin believes we should seek to develop an inclusive reconciliation process in the here and now. That might help create a future possibility to successfully address the past.

There is at least broad agreement our society needs reconciliation.

www.anphoblacht.com

A new framework for the unfinished business of the past This should become the basis for crossparty and community discussion on the process and how best to try and heal or bring closure to the suffering caused during the conflict.

NEW DYNAMIC

An initiative of common acknowledgement by all sides – British, Irish, republican and unionist – of the hurt and injustices caused by and to each other could introduce a powerful new dynamic to the Peace Process. It could make a significant contribution to healing and create new opportunities for friendship, trust and forgiveness to grow.

It would challenge us all – but that is what conflict resolution is about.

The two governments, republicans and unionists were not bystanders to the conflict.

None of us is absolved of responsibility to ensure that future generations grow up in a better place than we did. That is leadership.

There is an urgent imperative, North and South, to move beyond zero-sum discussions about the past and, trying to contrive postconflict ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.

This is not to suggest we forget our past but that we refuse to be imprisoned by its legacy, and accept each other as equals.

The alternative is to recycle recrimination and pass the blame game on to the next generation.

Colin Parry, whose son Tim was killed by the IRA in Warrington in 1993, said: “Seeking personal justice may not always sit well with the search for peace. You may have to set aside your own goals for the greater good.”

The destabilising potential of our unresolved past is not sustainable.

Consider the far-reaching implications of the recent Desmond de Silva report into the killing of Pat Finucane and state collusion; the forthcoming HM Inspectorate of Constabularies report into the Historical Enquiries Team; the derogation from the Weston Park Agreement concerning ‘On The Run’ republicans with the charging of John

Barra McGrory

Downey and Mickey Burns; and, the malign, residual influence of a ‘dark side’ in the policing and justice system.

It is all evidence of unfinished business and a political failure to conclusively deal with the past.

The longer the British Government and political unionism play poker with our past, the more it will continue to have destabilising repercussions for the Peace Process.

There is a need for a new approach.

The republican/nationalist and unionist sections of our community should begin their own discussions about the decisions and possible compromises which would ensure the past does not hold back the peace or political processes.

JUSTICE AND TRUTH

Colin Parry

Pat Finucane

Comprehensive discussions should be encouraged on: justice and truth, whether they can be achieved separately, simultaneously, or not at all; that is the practical implications of either or both in terms of judicial or non-judicial procedures; effective truth recovery mechanisms; and then how to secure them with maximum participation and cooperation.

International, independent oversight/facilitation for any or all the above, more political negotiations and legislation, or other processes also warrant discussion.

These are the searching, and perhaps uncomfortable conversations which we now need to have with one another.

A new process of engagement between the two governments and all the parties is absolutely required to address the past and other outstanding issues through negotiation, agreement, and implementation.

A new framework is clearly needed – and sooner not later.

That is the only way to finally map a direction of travel away from the past, towards a new phase of the Peace Process based on reconciliation and fully embracing equality, parity of esteem and mutual respect.

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July / Iúil 2013 13

We need to pull up our socks as Gaeilge

LIADH Ní RIADA

Oifigeach Náisiúnta Gaeilge TÁIM ANOIS ag obair mar an t-Oifigeach Náisiúnta Gaeilge le bliain agus caithimé rá go bhfuil an bhliain tar éis eitilt.

I have been working as the National Irish Language Officer for a little over a year now and I thought you might be interested to know what I have been up to. I write this as béarla as I realise that those of you who I am trying to encourage to use the cúpla focal are my biggest audience whose help I need.

I could go on a political rant about how the Fine Gael/Labour Government is turning a deaf ear to the needs of the Gaeltacht and Gaeilgeoirí all over the Country – ‘What’s new?’ says you. The straitéis teanga is nowhere near being implemented and Gaeilge in education is currently under review.

There is the constant threat of closing down rural schools, due not to declining numbers but the fact is that the bar is constantly being raised to keep the schools open – is the Government expecting Irishlanguage supporters to have more babies to meet the numbers for schools? An extra 10 students by 2014 are now required to maintain the four-teacher ratio in rural schools. This will have a huge impact particularly on the Gaeltacht and language development.

There are so many issues I could address but I want to keep this as a positive update. I want to let you know how we are doing as a proactive party that tries to promote and nurture our grá for our teanga agus cultúr.

It takes time to have an impact and to have a party lán Ghaeilge but we are making some progress.

There is a six-weekly electronic bulletin with updates about the main language issues. This is available to everyone by emailing me at liadh.niriada@sinnfein.ie to be put on the mail list.

I was greatly encouraged to hear more Gaeilge

being spoken during the Ard Fheis this year and we have had our various events which I have written about before.

And don’t forget to check out our Gaeilge Facebook page ‘An Cabaire’.

Gaeilge activists around the country are being identified and so before long you can expect to have no excuses left as there will be Irish-language classes or events in your area, hopefully rolling out in the autumn.

I realise that people simply don’t have the money to spend on classes or attending Gaeilge events around the country. With this in mind, we have to go back to organising local events. It can be anything from art classes, to book clubs or quiz nights and meet-ups, the only difference being that these events could be done through Gaeilge. Take it out of the classroom situation. You just happen to be doing something you enjoy as Gaeilge.

We are also implementing a new system where, if you are líofa, you can put a green symbol with the letter ‘G’ in your correspondence, a red ‘G’ for no Gaeilge at all and an orange’G’ for those of you who are learning. This is a good method for identifying the different levels of Gaeilge with those who you are in touch with. Naturally, if you see the green ‘G’, you can correspond totally as Gaeilge and so on. I hope that by this time next year that those of you who are orange Gs will have moved up to green Gs and reds of course will have moved to orange. Stay with it as clarity will come.

5 Our comrades san Sé Chontae are going from strength to strength with Líofa

I always say that language has no borders and I strongly believe that it can strengthen and support our vision of a united Éire. Our comrades san Sé Chontae are going from strength to strength with Líofa and are inspirational with their level of commitment and genuine passion for our language. We need to adopt their attitude and pull up our socks if we want to ensure that it’s not just lip-service in the rest of the country – so watch out as this Corcaíoch may well take out the bata mór and indeed have some on-the-spot Gaeilge tests.

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www.anphoblacht.com

Irish politics: A game of two halves

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THE last few weeks have given us eloquent proof, once again, that not only is Ireland a country of two opposing interests (those of the rich and those of the rest of us) but our political system is one with two different sets of rules and criteria for success or failure.

The biggest issue of the month was the ‘achievement’ (no less) by the Government in getting the other EU states to agree to ‘consider’ (that word is very important) applying new bank recapitalisation rules retrospectively.

This was presented in the media as opening up the possibility of Ireland getting Europe to take some of the burden imposed on us for recapitalising our failed banks, which was done at the expense of the Irish economy and to the benefit of European bankers.

A look at the detail, however, shows that there is little to cheer about. Such retrospective action will only be considered, and Germany’s Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble (who really calls the shots on these issues) warned that there was “no great leeway” for retrospective action. “It

5 Burton and Gilmore congratulate Patrick Nulty (centre) on his by-election victory in 2011

5 Social Protection Minister Joan Burton wants to punish those who don’t have jobs

The mentality of Joan Burton, Brendan Howlin and the rest reminds me of the laws brought in by the English King Henry VIII about ‘vagabonds’ makes no sense,” he added, “to raise false expectations.”

In any case, it is at least a year before the new ESM mechanism will even be established and every application will be considered on a case by case basis. With the Germans and the Dutch adamantly against retrospection, the chances of getting anything here are remote.

To be fair, Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan played down the likelihood of even applying for this mechanism. He prefers to look to “other options”.

These other options include the idea that the two pillar banks in Ireland, Bank of Ireland and AIB, will be profitable by the time the ESM mechanism comes into place, and that the market “should” (in Noonan’s words) see the value of buying them.

In this case, the state would not need extra money for recapitalisation and could hope to get back some of the money already squandered by

Fine Gael and Labour, and Fianna Fáil before them.

The naive among us might therefore imagine that the powers that be, especially in a government that includes representatives of a party that claims to have been founded by James Connolly, would be girding their loins to give those who have suffered most from austerity a bit of a break.

Nothing of the kind could be further from the Government’s mind.

It is reliably reported that the Government is planning a further 2% cut in the social welfare budget this year, with more cuts of 3% each year in 2015 and 2016. Social Protection Minister Joan Burton is looking to see how new measures can be found to encourage claimants to “take up work”

instead of just trying to defend her budget.

This line, of course, begs the question – just what work is there for claimants to take up?

It reminds me of the laws brought in by the English King Henry VIII who ordered that ‘vagabonds’ who had no work should be whipped – ‘that would teach them’. And that is the mentality which Burton, Howlin and the rest are bringing to bear on budgetary discussions.

There may not be any jobs but that won’t stop the Fine Gael/Labour Government from punishing those who don’t have jobs.

The European Commission goes even further. They want to privatise “work activation schemes”: that is, more profit for private sector greed merchants and misery for those who have lost their jobs and prospects of work through the Government’s austerity programme.

So, on the one hand, the European bankers can rest easy that their investments are secure and that new investment opportunities will be found in the recast Irish banking system.

But, on the other, the screws will be turned even tighter on the mass of working people who will see further erosion in living standards, deteriorating public services, and a demonisation of the unemployed.

There are some in Labour who cannot stay silent any longer. Patrick

Isolated action such as the resignation from Labour of Patrick Nulty TD is no use on its own Nulty TD, who lost the Labour Party whip for voting against the Budget in 2011, has now resigned from the Labour Party altogether.

But isolated action is no use on its own. What is needed is unity of the political, industrial and social forces that oppose austerity and the immoral decisions being imposed by this government.

Will Nulty and other Labour dissidents rise to the occasion?

5 German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, Fine Gael Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and the Labour Party Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin

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July / Iúil 2013 15

TIERNA CUNNINGHAM: Outgoing Deputy Mayor of Belfast, councillor and working mother

A good year ends

BY PEADAR WHELAN AS Sinn Féin’s Mairtín Ó Muilleoir was getting ready to take up the post of Mayor of Belfast, party colleague Tierna Cunningham was handing over her position as Deputy Mayor to the DUP’s Christopher Stalford.

In between the changeover, Tierna spoke to An Phoblacht about a year in which she used her office to open up the City Hall to so many different people and causes.

SITTING in her room in City Hall under the portrait of the legendary republican socialist Winifred Carney, Tierna rhymes off a list of meetings and events she attended and so many people who inspired her. It’s easy to see that Tierna is a ‘people person’.

5 Tierna with a portrait of legendary republican socialist Winifred Carney

5 Tierna’s son, Seán, is at the heart of everything she does

She carried out her responsibilities as Deputy Mayor of Belfast, represented her constituents as a Sinn Féin councillor and continued her work as a full-time youth worker with north Belfast ex-prisoners’ group Tar Isteach.

What is most remarkable about Tierna’s year in office is that she performed these separate

‘You soon realise that negotiating with a twoyear-old can be more difficult than negotiating with the other political parties’

‘Working mothers shouldn’t be deterred about taking on challenges like this’ roles on top of her most important one – as a working mother, Tierna’s son, Seán, is at the heart of everything she does. She makes it clear that her most important job is “being Seán’s mother”.

She says: “Working mothers shouldn’t be deterred about taking on challenges like this.

“Sometimes I had to bring Seán with me and, in fairness, people were very understanding and tolerant, especially when Seán was teething and going through ‘The Terrible 2s’.

“But I will say one thing,” she jokes, “you soon realise that negotiating with a two-yearold can be more difficult than negotiating with the other political parties.”

Tierna was in office during the protests over November’s vote to reduce the number of days the Union flag is to be flow over City Hall.

Did the violent protests that disrupted the city at its busiest time of the year affect the way she did her job and fulfil her engagements?

“We didn’t let it impact on our work or our relationships within or outside the council.

Sinn Féin as a party showed great leadership through the crisis and I continued to fulfil my engagements.

“In fact, on 15 December, Mayor Gavin Robinson of the DUP and myself hosted a Good Relations conference in the City Hall.”

There are burgeoning populations from Eastern European countries, the ever-expanding Chinese population and families coming from Africa.

The “new citizens”, as Tierna calls them, were an inspiration to her.

“I attended a number of functions celebrating the anniversaries of countries that achieved their freedom from British rule. I met people from Nigeria, Uganda and Jamaica.

They were very humbled that I would attend their celebrations but I told them that I was equally humbled and explained that, as republicans, we were inspired by them as they had actually achieved freedom from Britain.

“For me it was important to send out the

5 Tierna at the uneveiling of the mayoral portrait of Niall Ó Donnghaile by republican artist Danny Devenney (left)

5 For about 10 minutes Belfast had a Sinn Féin Mayor and Deputy Mayor

message that those people arriving here should be regarded as equal citizens and our political system should reflect that.”

Close to Tierna’s heart were the charities she was able to sponsor and she chose four that she believed were especially worthy of the support of City Hall: the Joby Murphy Trust, New Life Counselling, the Welcome Centre and the Oscar Knox Appeal.

Four-year-old Oscar Knox was fighting a rare form of cancer and became something of a celebrity as he appeared on TV and at events during an imaginative fund-raising campaign.

Thankfully, ‘Wee Oscar’, as he’s known across the city, has recently been given the all-clear.

“I was so inspired by ‘Fearless Oscar’ and wanted to help so I got together with people from the boxing fraternity and we put a fight card together in City Hall. It was a brilliant night.

“When I look back over the year and the events I’ve attended, I think being Deputy Mayor and representing the council and Sinn Féin at the head of the Pride Parade in Belfast was one of the best moments of my time in office.

“I am a proud republican and equality is our watchword. To stand shoulder to shoulder with people fighting for equal rights was such a good experience.”

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New Mayor of Belfast, Sinn Féin Councillor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, talks to An Phoblacht “HERE’S an interesting piece of information for you,” says Belfast’s new mayor, Sinn Féin Councillor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.

Sitting in the Mayor’s Parlour at City Hall, Ó Muilleoir explains that between when he was first elected on to Belfast City Council in 1987 to the present day there was a swing deferential of 16 seats.

“The unionist parties have lost eight and the ‘opposition’ have gained eight,” he says.

“And guess where those eight seats have gone?”

Before I get a chance to answer, he grins: “Sinn Féin.” He adds: “In 1987, the SDLP had eight seats, they still have eight; Alliance had six, they still have six, we had eight, now we have 16, while the unionists have dropped eight. That is a massive swing and it tells us so much about the way Belfast has been and is changing.

As we speak, it’s clear that the Mayor (or Lord

In 1987, he was dragged out by the police after 10 minutes simply because he spoke in Irish

WORDS & PICTURES

BY PEADAR WHELAN Mayor as the unionists parties insist on calling him even though they didn’t want to hear him in 1987) will use his year in office to build goodwill and respect among the citizens of what he proudly calls “this great city”.

It’s clear that the positivity and dynamism that the west Belfast man brings to everything he has done in the past will be at the heart of his term as first citizen.

Depsite what he and other reublican councillors have had to endure in the past, in this term, his second stint as a councillor, Máirtín has an open-minded approach to things. “This is a new era. We are not in 1987 anymore.”

He reminds me of just how bad things were when he first entered the bear pit of Belfast City

respect in here so we can work to find accommodation on what divides us.

“When I came back after being elected two years ago, I made the mistake of thinking it was just the way it was 20 years ago, but I soon realised that there is a progressive approach to things now: that it isn’t just about nationalism and unionism, that we need to work in the

‘It wasn’t an easy road to here but we are in a new era and we want to make progress for all our people’

‘I want City Hall to be a welcoming place for everyone’ Council politics as a young, newly-elected councillor for Andersonstown.

“I was dragged out by the RUC police after 10 minutes simply because I spoke in Irish. I came to meetings wearing body armour and I was banned from the parlour that we are now sitting in.

“Seán Lavery, the 21-year-old son of [Sinn Féin Cuncillor] Bobby Lavery was shot dead.

Alan Lundy, a party activist, was shot dead in [Councillor] Alex Maskey’s house. Alex himself was shot and seriously wounded. [Councillor]

interests of all the people but especially those who live in areas blighted by social deprivation.”

He’s at pains to point out that his first priority is to reassure unionists that he and Sinn Féin, as

a party, respect unionism and its traditions.

“If we want to make peace with them then we want them to be confident that we respect them,” he insists before reiterating that he will not be removing any portraits or artefacts from the parlour considered important to the unionist community.

He makes the point also that he isn’t averse to

‘I came to Belfast City Council meetings wearing body armour’

Seán Keenan was shot on two occasions.

“It was a time of great suffering and I’m very conscious of that it wasn’t an easy road to here but we are in a new era,” he says thoughtfully, “and we want to make progress for all our people.”

The situation today is so different from when Alex Maskey came into this council as the first Sinn Féin councillor after his election in 1983, Máirtín says.

“My election as mayor was a formality, something that was unimaginable when I was first here.

“Now, however, we agree on 90% of issues and the 10% we don’t agree on – such as identity, allegiances and symbols – we can work on. There is a lot of goodwill and mutual

5 A portrait of African-American civil rights activist Rosa Parks hangs in Máirtín Ó Muilleoir’s mayoral parlour

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5 Among the first calls Máirtín Ó Muilleoir made on his election as mayor was to US Congressman Richie Neal using the title Lord Mayor as unionists see it as the proper title of the first citizen and respect it such.

On the night of his election, DUP stalwart Christopher Stalford was selected by his party to take the post of Deputy Mayor. Seen by many as an uncompromising unionist, the question as to how he would relate to a mayor from Sinn Féin was asked. It was partly answered on the night of the election when he publicly accepted Máirtín’s congratulatory handshake.

So far, the pair – like their predecessors, Mayor Gavin Robinson of the DUP and Deputy Mayor Tierna Cunningham of Sinn Féin – are working well together.

“Christopher is a young capable politician

‘The issues we don’t agree on – such as identity, allegiances and symbols – we can work on’

who wants to build on the progress we’ve made so I’m happy to work with him,” the new Mayor says.

“The first visit we made together was to unionist Sandy Row and the nationalist Markets, both areas that need significant investment. As this was the first time that anyone took part in a joint visit like this it was a very important initiative”.

Asked what the council will be doing practically to help alleviate the hardships experienced by working-class communities, he reminds me of the council’s £150million investment package announced last year that was endorsed by all the parties on the council.

“Only this morning the council agreed a £100million spending package to improve leisure facilities throughout the city,” he points out.

“People deserve equal opportunities, work and a quality of life that will change things on the ground and we’ve seen projects in my own area benefiting from investments that have and are making a difference to people.

“We have £2million gone into Dunville Park; Conway Mill received a £5million grant; An Cultúrlann got £3million; and just last year the Education Department announced £14million funding for Coláiste Feirste.”

5 Máirtín with former Sinn Féin mayors Niall Ó Donnghaile, Alex Maskey and Tom Hartley

One of the challenges that unionists set out to test republican bona fides is that of remembrance.

Máirtín addresses the question unambiguously.

“I visited the Somme Centre recently because I wanted to understand why the Battle of the Somme is central to the Unionist tradition.

“Unionists see the lives lost in the First World War as a blood sacrifice, a part of a birthright that they paid in blood to cement their status as part of the British Empire. That is central to the unionist heritage, but the difficulty for republicans and nationalists is that remembrance ceremonies, such as those held at the Cenotaph, are heavily militarised events, events that honour the British military.

“We need to remember the Somme in a way that honours the dead and doesn’t use their deaths as a battering ram against nationalists and republicans who also have relatives who were killed in the First World War.” And, in the way that Mairtín uses to disarmingly get to the crux of an issue, he adds: “There is no Union flag in the Somme Centre.”

That, it seems, is his way of saying our history and heritage are broader than an allegiance to one particular flag or worldview. It is also an acknowledgement of the ground-breaking actions of previous mayors from Sinn Féin – Alex Maskey, Tom Hartley and Niall Ó Donnghaile – all of whom took part in acts of remembrance at the Cenotaph in the grounds of City Hall in honour of the dead of the Somme.

“Being Mayor (or Lord Mayor) is a real challenge to republicans,” Máirtín acknowledges. “It can stretch us but we have always risen to the challenges and this coming year for me will be

‘It isn’t just about nationalism and unionism.

We need to work in the interests of all the people but especially those who live in areas blighted by social deprivation’

no different to the challenges faced by those who sat in this room before me.”

Repeatedly, Máirtín returns to the theme of investment and economic development for working-class areas.

And, given his links with high-profile IrishAmerican figures (he’s head of the Belfast Media Group, which includes the Irish Echo newspaper in the US), he stresses the importance of continued American support for the Peace Process.

Among the first phone calls he made on the night he was installed were to Congressman Richie Neal and publisher Niall O’Dowd. “Both men have played an important role over the years in helping us to bring the Peace Process to where it is today,” Máirtín is keen to emphasise.

“In my time here as Mayor I will do everything I can to strengthen this city’s ties with the United States and next year the council is organising a technology mission to the west coast of America in the hope of winning hi-tech jobs and investment.”

And, as his Twitter name has always reflected, he is representing a new Belfast.

“I spoke earlier about the swing differential away from unionism and how the demography of the city has changed, but it has also changed with the influx of people from across Europe and Africa. So, as with the other Sinn Féin incumbents, I want City Hall to be a welcoming place for everyone.

“I want this parlour to be open for Travellers, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. I intend it to be a place of sanctuary.

“The Irish language will be heard here.

“I also want to commend Gavin Robinson who last year, as Mayor, attended the Pride Parade in the city. We are building on that this year when I will attend as First Citizen representing Belfast City Council. I have also written the introduction for this year’s Pride brochure.

“City Hall is open for the residents and citizens of this city. You are welcome.”

‘We need to remember the Somme in a way that honours the dead and doesn’t use their deaths as a battering ram against nationalists and republicans’

Follow Máirtín Ó Muilleoir on Twitter @newbelfast His book, Belfast’s Dome of Delight: City Hall Politics 1981-2000 (Beyond the Pale), is available from the Sinn Féin Bookshop.

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BONO Caring face of the global elite Author, journalist and academic HARRY BROWNE has caused quite a stir with his new book, The Frontman – Bono (In the Name of pPwer). An Phoblacht columnist EOIN Ó BROIN caught up with Harry to discuss the book and the public and media reaction to it.

B

ORN in the United States, Harry Browne has lived and worked in Ireland since the 1980s. He describes himself as a radical pacifist, an egalitarian and an

anarchist.

Never a member of any political party, he is a wellknown figure among the independent Irish Left. His first book, Hammered by the Irish, tells the story of the Pitstop Ploughshares group who tried to dismantle a US warplane in Shannon Airport in February 2003.

His new work, published by Verso, has a very different focus. He has gone from writing about a group of people that he loves to writing about a person and a set of ideas that he is deeply critical of.

For Browne, U2 frontman Bono is “the caring face of the global elite . . . He confers humanitarian cover on warmongers, on imperialists, on corporations and governments” – so much so that he thought it was “important enough to take that on”.

The Frontman is not a biography of Bono’s musical career or of Paul Hewson the person. It is a critique of the political positions, alliances and campaign commitments of the U2 singer.

Browne believes that it is important to take Bono seriously “because of who takes him seriously and who uses him seriously”, adding: “Bill Gates has paid out tens of millions of dollars to Bono and his ONE campaign. That’s serious. That’s a serious person who has a very serious agenda for devel-

opment in Africa and who regards Bono as a very important means to advance that agenda.

“Tony Blair put Bono and Geldof beside him at the end of the G8 summit in 2005.

George Bush took him for walks in the Rose Garden. Bill Clinton invited him into the White House, as does Barack Obama.”

When a rock star’s words are “greeted with the solemnity of a Security Council resolution” (as were Bono’s in the aftermath of the 2005 G8 summit on developing world debt) Browne believes we should all take note.

“That’s a lot of symbolic power and symbolic power in this world is important.”

B

UT THE FRONTMAN Is about much more than just Bono. It is about ‘celebrity diplomacy’. And this is the real target for Browne.

“Celebrity has become an important component of the forms of governance that we see in the neo-liberal period. As direct participation in politics has declined it has been replaced by these figures who say this is the right thing to do, figures in the public eye, rock stars like Bono, who tell us that although we may seem more alienated from our governments than previous generations, it’s okay, they are looking after things.”

For Browne this use of celebrity “is part of a shift

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BOOK

The damage of celebrity diplomacy

5 Harry Browne speaks to Eoin Ó Broin about his new book "The Frontman – Bono (In the Name of Power)" towards less transparent, less accountable form of governance” where “corporations, foundations, celebrities and multilateral institutions, that don’t have much democratic accountability, are deciding policy”.

And it is here we get to the heart of Browne’s critique.

He argues that the question of power is crucial.

Browne cites Bono’s ‘Product Red’ campaign as “a great example where the enormous power of multinational companies is dressed up as an act of giving, the act of consuming and interacting with these massive corporations which are designed to make profit is turned into a humanitarian act and the winners in that are very clear”.

For Browne the “pre-eminent winners” are the corporations; the losers may be others’ charities.

“It may be the idea that these are services that should be transparently provided through the public sphere and not opaquely provided through a corporation, and the losers are sometimes the people of the developing world.”

The purpose of the book, Browne

says, is to get people to think more critically about Bono and the type of celebrity diplomacy that he represents.

But the author also wants to promote an alternative form of activism “that doesn’t involve always kissing up to power”.

“What if Bono had decided to take a stand after the 2005 Gleneagles summit,” wonders Browne aloud, “if he had said ‘this is a fix, they have betrayed us.’

“What an important statement that would have been.

He would have shown that he could be something distinct, that he could stand for something different to power. He would have been using his power and influence properly.”

In the end it is this failure that motivated Browne to devote his time and energy to producing this critique of Bono. Not only does he want us to take a second look at the politics behind the wraparound shades but also to consider an activism “that shouldn’t always serve power and hopefully never serves power, even if it occasionally compromises with power”.

5 For Browne the ‘pre-eminent winners’ are the corporations; the losers may be others’ charities

The Frontman – Bono (In the Name of Power)

By Harry Browne Verso – Counterblast series €12.60 REVIEWED BY EOIN Ó BROIN FOR SOME YEARS I talked about writing a book on the politics and finances of Bono and Geldof. Thankfully, Harry Browne got there first.

The Frontman is a powerful critique of the politics of U2 singer Paul Hewson, aka Bono. More importantly, it challenges the too often unquestioned consequences of celebrity diplomacy.

It’s published as part of Verso’s Counterblasts series, whose aim is to challenge the mainstream perceptions of high-profile public figures.

And Browne takes to this task with gusto.

No story is too small to tell, from Bono’s early days in the Dublin music scene of the 1980s to his shoulderrubbing with world leaders in London and Washington in the 1990s and since.

The book is divided into three neat sections: the first deals with Ireland, the second with Africa, and the third with the wider world.

Browne describes and then critiques Bono’s involvement in various campaigns from Self Aid in Ireland during the unemployment crisis of the 1980s, to Live Aid during the food crisis in Ethiopia, to the campaigns to reduce developing world debt in the run-up to the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit, to his more recent initiatives to raise funds for organisations such as DATA (‘debt, AIDS, trade, Africa’) “created for the purposes of obtaining equality and justice for Africa through debt relief”.

The Frontman also retells the story of Bono’s involvement in U2’s massive and legal tax avoidance scandal.

The weakest section of the book is the first, partly because Browne has less original source material to work from and partly because he over-uses stories that even he himself admits are untrue or unverifiable gossip.

That said, the book really comes into its own in the section on Africa.

Browne lays bare the hypocrisy of Bono’s celebrity diplomacy and highlights the damage being done in the name of helping others.

The real beneficiaries, according to The Frontman, are those with power: governments, corporations and elites, including celebrity elites.

Harry Browne challenges the idea of Bono as a benign do-gooder who at worst does no harm. Instead, he argues that he is an integral part of a nexus of power relations involving major corporations and world leaders.

His function in this nexus is to make bad things look good.

Some media reactions (such as in the Irish Times and Sunday Independent) have tried to dismiss Harry Browne’s book. In doing so they have laid bare their own prejudices.

Others, most notably RTÉ, have just ignored the book, damaging their own credibility in the process.

However anyone with a real interest in politics and its interaction with celebrity will value The Frontman.

Its arguments are provocative and so they should be. Power must always be subject to the searchlight of critical enquiry, irrespective of whether that power is wielded by a dictator, a democratically-elected head of state or the world’s most powerful rock star.

The Frontman is a must-read. Some pages will enrage you, others will just annoy you, a few will even make you laugh, but in the very best tradition of the radical pamphlet it will educate you and hopefully motivate you. Not enough books these days can claim to do that.

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EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

Ní Cómhionannas go Cómhionannas Ghaeilge SÉ CÓMHIONANNAS bunchloch Chomhaontú Aoine an Chéasta agus Cómhaontú Chill Ríminn araon, agus tá an Ghaeilge in áit tosaigh ó thaobh an chomhionannais dhe.

Ach mar a léiríonn tuarascáil ón CAJ ó thuaidh tá rialú i ndiaidh rialú ag tíocht amach ón gCoimisiun Comhionannais in aghaidh na Gaeilge. Tá le tuiscint uatha go mbíonn tionchar diúltach ann d’Aontachtóirí nó do Phrotastúnaigh má bhaintear úsáid as an nGaeilge in aon áit phoiblí.

Agus sampla suarach de seo na inneadh an

Bhord Turasóireachta go mbeadh deóntas ar fail do chomhairle dúiche ar an gcoinníoll go mbeadh na comharthai i mBéarla amháin.

Ar ndóigh ní bhaineann an Ghaeilge le Caitlicigh nó le náisiúntoirí amháin, is níor bhain riamh.

Ní hamháin a go bhfuil spéis ag a lán daoine sa bpobal Protastúnach - agus dílseóirí cuid mhaith acu siúd - sa nGaeilge ach ba de bhunadh Gaeilge cuid mhaith a thainig isteach ó Albain san Séú is Seachtú Céad Déag.

Ach sin é an stair.

Tá cearta ag Gaeilgeóirí ó thuaidh inniu toisc gur chuid den phobal iad, agus níl aon

chohionannas ann mura n-aithnítear cearta na ndaoine seo a dteanga a úsáid go hoifigiuil is go poiblí.

Mar ag deire thiar níl aon bhrú ar éinne Gaeilge a labhairt mura miste leis nó léí é. Cén fath mar sin go mbeadh sé ceart brú a chur ar dhaoine Béarla a labhairt?

Nuair a rinneadh socrú i gCill Ríminn na hAlban is gur athbhunaíodh na hinstitiúidí ó thuaidh ba chuid den socrú é go mbeadh Acht Teangnan ann don tuaisceart.

Ach tá na pairtithe Aontachtóirí ag diultú glacadh leis an Acht sin.

Ní shin deire an scéil ámh, mar mura bhfuil

BOOK

The last man to leave the GPO Diarmuid Lynch: A forgotten Irish patriot

By Eileen McGough Mercier Press Price: €14.99 REVIEW BY MICHAEL MANNION IT’S HARD to understand how a man who was a member of the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the person chosen to select the best landing spot for Casement’s arms shipment, Connolly’s aide-de-camp during the Rising, and the last man to leave the GPO could be so unrecognised by many – Eileen McGough’s meticulously-researched biography attempts to change that.

After the Rising, Lynch was spared execution and deported to America due to his having acquired US citizenship during a youthful period of emigration. On returning to America he dedicated himself to the creation of a unified Irish caucus to support the struggle at home. His undoubted organisational skills resulted in an expansion from 33 branches and affiliates tenfold to 333 within two years.

And then came the inevitable split.

5 Lynch was James Connolly’s aide-de-camp and the last person to leave the besieged GPO Tensions between those who wished to place an American agenda of lobbying ahead of a support role for the struggle now underway in Ireland erupted in outright hostility with the

Member of the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Connolly’s aide-de-camp advent of De Valera on the American scene. De Valera, Joseph McGarrity and Liam Mellows were of the view that activities in America were subordinate to the situation in Ireland; Lynch, Daniel Cohalan and John

Devoy felt that the needs of the American political system needed to be accommodated in order to be most effective.

The very public falling out between the two groups caused a virtual collapse of the previously unified organisation. Lynch and his associates became isolated and increasingly irrelevant.

Whilst this book is perhaps a little too uncritical of Lynch’s failings, it nevertheless fills a gap in our knowledge that most of us didn’t realise existed.

History is often written by the winning side and so Diarmuid Lynch has been relegated to obscurity. Perhaps this book will rectify that.

na hAontachtóirí sásta Acht den chineál sin a chur tríd an Tionól ó thuaidh tá dualgas ar rialtas na Breataine an reachtaíocht a thabhairt tríd íad féin.

Is cosúil ámh nach bhfuil aon fhonn ar rialtas na Breataine a gcuid dualgaisí faoi chomhaontú Chill Riminn a chur i gcrích, is níl rialtas Bhaile Átha Cliath ag cur aon bhrú orthu an jab a dhéanamh.

Tá sé in am an brú sin a chur ar an rialtas ó dheas agus ar rialtas Londain araon.

Agus ní ghnó do Shinn Féin amháin é sin, ach gnó do ghluaiseacht na Gaeilge fré chéile é.

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In a pattern that would be repeated in Dublin, the employers imported scab dockers from Liverpool. The Royal Irish Constabulary and British troops were deployed in large numbers

Sligo prelude to Great Lockout 1913

THE Great Lockout of 1913 was preceded by struggles in different parts of Ireland as workers fought for the right to organise in trade unions, principally in the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union There was the Belfast docks strike in 1907, in which two young workers were killed; the Cork City strike of 1909, one of the first by the ITGWU, which was founded that year; the Jacob’s biscuit factory strike in Dublin in 1911, which led to the founding of the Irish Women Workers’ Union; the Pierce iron foundry strike in Wexford in 1912, during which the RIC batoned a worker to death; and the Larne factory strike of 1913.

The Sligo town strike of 1913 showed, on a smaller scale, many of the features of the great Dublin confrontation just a few weeks later. Sligo was a thriving port, attracting workers from across the West and North-West of Ireland. But pay and conditions were miserable and, as in Dublin, the housing conditions of workers and their families were dire. The rate of tuberculosis was higher than the Irish average.

Jim Larkin had visited the town in 1912 and was denounced by the Catholic Bishop Dr Clancy who said that “no respectable citizen of our town and county will take part in the meeting at which this man is advertised to

Fr Michael O’Flanagan speak”. Nonetheless, the meeting went ahead and the ITGWU was established and active in Sligo.

The 1913 dispute began in March when workers on the steamship Sligo demanded more help or, failing that, extra wages. The employers refused and five workers who stopped work were arrested, prosecuted for disobeying a “lawful order” and received seven days’ hard labour. ITGWU dockers refused to load the ship and the strike extended throughout the docks, with coal workers striking.

In a pattern that would be repeated in Dublin, the employers imported scab

dockers from Liverpool. The Royal Irish Constabulary and British troops were deployed in large numbers. Strikers fought the scabs (also known as ‘blacklegs’) and the RIC baton charged the workers. In one confrontation, a blackleg named Garvey struck a union member, Dunbar, on the head with a shovel and the assault proved fatal.

Dunbar’s name was added to the list of workers who had died in the struggle for justice since the ITGWU was founded three years earlier.

Sligo County Council denounced Larkin’s “foul, anti-Christian doctrines” but the strikers had widespread support and large public meetings were held in the Town Hall with the backing of the Mayor. Senior ITGWU official PT Daly came from Dublin and a settlement was reached at the end of May, preserving the right of the workers to organise and improving working conditions.

Among those who visited and supported the striking workers in Sligo was the republican cleric from Roscommon, Fr Michael O’Flanagan, later a leader of Sinn Féin, campaigner for social justice and supporter of the Spanish Republic against Franco.

The Sligo town strike of 1913 was a significant struggle in itself and a foretaste of the Great Lockout that began 100 years ago this summer.

emembering R

Past

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha launches his book ‘Lockout 1913 – Austerity 2013’ in Sligo Town Library during which the Sligo strike of 1913 was recalled. Mícheál is pictured here at the launch with Éamon Ó Cléirigh and a recently discovered early Sligo ITGWU banner featuring James Connolly

LOCKOUT 1913 – AUSTERITY 2013

The 1913 Lockout was the most momentous workers' struggle in Irish history.

Out of dire poverty in Dublin slumsthe came the risen people who fought against terrible odds for months, seemed defeated but went on to rise again for workers' rights PRICE and Irish freedom. Lockout 1913 – Austerity 2013 tells the story of those brave €7.99 (PLUS POSTAG AND PACKAGIN E men and women and their relevance for today, a century on G)

'Inspired by the legacy of the past and applying the fighting spirit of Jim Larkin and the progressive teachings of James Connolly to our own time, we can say, in the words of the Civil Rights anthem – We shall overcome.'

Gerry Adams TD, President of Sinn Féin Available from SINN FÉIN BOOKSHOP 58 Parnell Square, Dublin 1.

+353 1 814 8542

sales@sinnfeinbookshop.com

Published by Sinn Féin Centenaries Commemoration Committee, Coiste Comóradh Céad Bliain

www.sinnfeinbookshop.com Produced bt Republican Publications

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Palestine Solidarity Project peaceful resistance group founder talks to An Phoblacht

Mousa Abu Maria

Shot in the head, imprisoned and tortured

BY MARK MOLONEY I MEET MOUSA ABU MARIA at the Sinn Féin Head Office in Dublin’s Parnell Square. Mousa is the co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP) and is in Ireland to speak at a number of events organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He’s a quiet and softly spoken man and certainly does not come across as the ‘terror leader’ that some Israeli media outlets have dubbed him.

Before he arrives I read an article that appeared in the November 2012 right-wing Israeli daily, The Jerusalem Post, with the headline: “Terror activist to speak at British House of Commons.” The paper claims Mousa was linked to the extreme militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Mousa, who is a vocal advocate of non-violent direct action along with his Jewish-American wife, Rebekah, rubbishes the claim.

“When the Israeli Government wants to justify imprisoning people they just make up whatever alle-

“

I believe in peaceful resistance.

Non-violent resistance is how we can show the international community that we are fighting for rights

‘The Jerusalem Post’ describes the vocal advocate of non-violent direct action married to a Jewish-American as a ‘terror activist’ linked to Palestinian Islamic Jihad gations they want. I’ve never believed in violence. I believe in peaceful resistance. Non-violent resistance is how we can show the international community that we are fighting for rights, that we are not a violent people.”

Mousa says he has seen many Israeli news reports in recent years describe him as a terrorist or militant.

“The Israelis want to portray us as terrorists to the rest of the world, so they will use propaganda and throw about these phrases.”

Mousa lives in the West Bank town of Beit Ommar.

The agricultural village is surrounded on three sides by illegal Israeli settlements. Every week, inch-byinch, more Palestinian land is confiscated by the military. All entrances to the town are controlled by heavily-armed Israeli troops and day by day the town is being engulfed by the continued expansion.

Three-quarters of the people who live in the town are farmers. In 2006, 40% of Mousa’s farmland was confiscated by Israel. Bulldozers tore up the 100-yearold vineyards and a security wall with CCTV cameras was built through it.

5 Mousa is injured and arrested during a protest against the confiscation of Palestinian land by Israel

“They told me the land was now a ‘closed military zone’. Since then they started building houses on it. I went to the court but they didn’t care. The beautiful new houses that were built on my stolen land were given to Jewish settlers from the USA and Russia. Year by year, Beit Ommar is getting smaller.”

Mousa also points out how other nearby pieces of stolen land are now used by settlers to grow fruit that is sold in Europe with the label “Product of Israel”.

Mousa tells me his PSP organisation distributes

Mousa’s organisation distributes cameras to young people in the town so they can record and expose the violent tactics employed by the Israeli military to a wider audience cameras to young people in the town so they can record and expose the violent tactics employed by the military to a wider audience.

“The Israeli Army tries to stop the videos from being uploaded to sites like YouTube, so they arrest the kids.

There are a large number of people from my town imprisoned; around 45% of those are children. We are talking about kids as young as 13 and 14. Under international law it is illegal to imprison such young children but Israel has never cared about international law.”

The PSP organises a peaceful demonstration every Saturday against the occupation. In response, Israeli troops will launch night-time raids and arrest protesters. Mousa shows me a video shot in the town of a raid in October 2012. Heavily-armed Israeli forces flood into the narrow streets and kidnap a local Popular Committee member and his 14-year-old son.

The shaky footage is punctuated by the constant boom and flash of stun grenades and sound bombs.

Mousa says such arrests are a tactic to threaten and intimidate activists and their families.

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5 The Israeli Army frequently confiscates and destroys produce belonging to farmers in Beit Ommar

5 Israeli soldiers detain Mousa during one of the weekly demonstrations against the occupation in Beit Ommar “During our weekly protest the Israeli Army takes photos of the young people on the march. Later that night they will come to arrest them. Israeli soldiers don’t want our kids to grow up supporting non-violent action. They want them to be violent.”

Locals are convinced the Israeli military wants to use violence from Palestinian youths as a pretext to justify their ongoing illegal confiscations of Palestinian land.

I ask Mousa if it’s difficult to convince the young people he works with in a war zone that peaceful resistance is the way forward.

“No,” he says confidently. “We train these kids about how Israeli soldiers want to get a violent reaction from them. We tell them ‘Please don’t give them the reaction they are looking for. Sing or have a sit-down

Mousa spent two years in prison under what is called ‘administrative detention’ in 2008. He was interned.

During his interrogation he was subjected to beatings and torture protest, then the soldiers will feel shame if they try to arrest you.’”

Mousa was first imprisoned for seven years in 1999.

He and other students organised a protest against the Israeli military’s occupation of their school. The students believed the occupation of the school, and later the university, was a deliberate attempt to frustrate young people from getting an education.

“We blocked the street every day and stopped the Israeli military jeeps. Then, one day, the soldiers in the jeeps opened fire on the protest. Two students were killed.” Mousa was arrested at his home for organising the “illegal protests” and for removing an Israeli flag from his school and replacing it with a Palestinian one. Later, while imprisoned, Israeli newspapers claimed he had been involved in an armed group while others said he had thrown petrol bombs at a military vehicle. Neither claim was true.

“From my perspective, I was in prison for a good reason. I was protesting for my right to study and have an education,” he smiles.

Mousa spent two years in prison under what is called ‘administrative detention’ in 2008. He was arrested and locked-up without any charge or trial.

He was interned. During his interrogation he was subjected to beatings and torture, something he is reluctant to talk about.

“I found it very hard to be in prison without charge or any reason,” he says. “I went to court many times to ask the judge why I was in jail. He never gave me an answer. It made me believe that there is no justice in Israel. The court is just a propaganda exercise. I was very angry that I spent two years in prison for no reason.”

One of the main problems faced by residents of Beit Ommar is attacks from the Israeli settlers.

“The settlers attack our farmers and make them suffer. They cut down the olive tress and spray sewage water into the fields. They shoot dead the farmers’ sheep.”

In January 2008, a clash between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in nearby Kfar Etzion left two Palestinians dead. The next day, Israeli forces swamped Beit Ommar, which was covered in a heavy blanket of snow. As residents gathered to see what was happening, Israeli troops opened fire on the crowd with rubber bullets and live ammunition. 18year-old Mohammed Awwad was shot dead. Mousa was shot in the head and wounded while five other civilians were treated for gunshot wounds to the legs.

“

The beautiful new houses that were built on my stolen land were given to Jewish settlers from the USA and Russia

5Mousa has called on Irish people to support the BDS campaign It is not an occurrence unique to Beit Ommar.

To help end the occupation, Mousa says people in Ireland and Europe should support the boycott of Israel.

“Boycott is not just refusing to buy the product,” he says. “It is refusing to engage academically with them, it is divestment by companies.”

Earlier this year the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) pledged an academic boycott of Israel while Professor

I ask Mousa if it’s difficult to convince the young people he works with in a war zone that peaceful resistance is the way forward Stephen Hawking faced a torrent of offensive and vicious abuse from pro-Israel lobbyists over his decision not participate in the 2013 Israeli Presidential Conference in May. Hawking responded by saying that even if he had attended he would have told the conference that “the policy of the present Israeli Government is likely to lead to disaster”.

Mousa says the international community has to realise that when they fund the occupation they are complicit in the killing of Palestinians. He says that a boycott will weaken the occupation and help to bring about peace. He calls on the international community to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and to put pressure on their own governments to do likewise.

“I also ask people to visit Palestine to see the reality on the ground for themselves. They should not just listen to the international media, which prefers to only focus on violence from Palestinians, thus justifying the occupation. They should come and see for themselves what Israeli occupation really means.”

5 Israeli hilltop settlements have almost completely surrounded Beit Ommar

For more information on the Palestine Solidarity Project, visit:

www.palestinesolidarityproject.org

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24 July / Iúil 2013

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OPINION

PHIL Mac GIOLLA BHÁIN

International Federation of Journalists World Congress meets in Dublin in recognition of 1913 Lockout centenary

FREEDOM

PRESS

OF THE

THE FIRST WEEK in June saw Dublin host the World Congress of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

The IFJ had decided to come to our capital city in recognition of the centenary of the 1913 Dublin LockOut. Delegates and Irish National Union of Journalists members carried 408 carnations, one for each journalist who had lost their life over the last three years, in a silent vigil from the conference centre in Dublin Castle past the Veronica Guerin monument and on to City Hall.

Commenting on the commemoration event, IFJ General Secretary Beth Costa said: “This Freedom Walk demonstrates our solidarity with those who have died because they were journalists.

“In saluting the men and women who have died because of their profession, we also show our commit-

We carried 408 carnations, one for each journalist who had lost their life over the last three years ment to the profession of journalism and send a clear signal that the IFJ is vigilant in defence of journalists and journalism.”

Two by two, we walked in silence. The fellow journalist beside me was Nabhan Khraishi of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, who told me of the daily dangers that he and his colleagues have to endure because the Israeli Government and military would rather they stopped reporting on the reality of the West Bank occupation and the situation in Gaza.

Uilleann piper Néillidh Mulligan played the lament Caitríona Rua (a slow air that he composed after the death of his mother Catherine in 2001) at the Veronica Guerin monument.

Veronica was murdered in 26 June 1996 by a criminal gang; in the North, those responsible for the loyalist murder of Martin O’Hagan in September 2001 have yet to face justice.

Over the week I found that, across the planet, the Section 31 censorship mentality once commonplace in Ireland is alive and well in many other countries. It is often reinforced by government-approved death squads.

I spoke to journalists from Brazil, Iraq, Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa.

There was a depressingly commonality to much of their daily experience as journalists.

I cannot conceive of a functioning democracy that does not have a free press.

In Britain, the scandal surrounding The News of the World and ‘Hackgate’ shows clearly what the virus of unfettered capitalism will do to journalism.

The ownership of the media is also an important determinant as to whether or not the press is actually free.

The IFJ were in Dublin to commemorate the centenary of the Dublin Lock-Out.

5 The International Federation of Journalists' World Congress pose for a photo at Dublin Castle

One hundred years ago, Irish Independent press baron William Martin Murphy wanted to break the power of organised labour; today, contemporary media barons share some of William Martin Murphy’s autocratic tendencies.

So in remembering the struggles of 1913 we are not looking back at a history that is closed and done with, but it connects us to what the economic realities of today.

Workers can lose their livelihoods on the whim of a boss or at the stroke of an accountant’s pen.

This is an Ireland that William Martin Murphy would approve of.

The International Federation of Journalists conference took place in Dublin Castle.

Looking out from the Print Works onto the famous battlements, I reminded visiting brothers and sisters that

The Section 31 censorship mentality once commonplace in Ireland is alive and well in many other countries these buildings were once hated symbols of British rule and they are now the centre of the Irish state.

James Connolly warned about a ‘free’ Ireland where the likes of William Martin Murphy and his kind would wield power.

Change is possible but it takes time and collective effort and it cannot be achieved without a vibrant media.

I also considered how, 30 years ago, this multi-ethnic visitation would have stood out on the streets of Dublin.

Over the week they were dandering around Dame Street and Trinity College and they blended in seamlessly to the New Ireland.

A sister from Brazil said she was amazed by the amount of Portuguese she had heard being spoken on the streets of Dublin.

In the age of tabloid infotainment and Hackgate, it was important to reconnect to the vibrancy of great journalism around the world.

Incredibly brave men and women, on a daily basis, put their lives and liberty on the line to report and to bear witness.

I was proud to walk with them.

Phil Mac Giolla Bháin is a member of the Irish Executive Council of the National Union of Journalists and is writing in a personal capacity.

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

SMEs and EU funding SINCE the inception of the European Peace Fund initiative, the North has seen the funding of over 22,000 projects, benefiting hundreds of thousands of people. But it is not just Peace Funds that have assisted projects across Ireland.

While projects such as conflict resolution and victims and survivors’ projects were helped greatly by these funds, infrastructural, transport, tourism, enterprise and knowledge-based projects have also been boosted by other EU funding streams, such as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) The financial package negotiated by Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson with the British Government will see an additional ¤50million on top of the recent proposal for ¤150million Peace IV funding from Europe.

While these funding streams will ensure the continued development of many worthwhile, community-based projects, there are many other opportunities presenting to assist small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and research and innovation projects.

The Horizon 2020 EU Funding programme, which runs from 2013-2020, is specifically targeting research and innovation. ERDF funding for integrated sustainable development is also available and these funding streams are an under-utilised potential financial resource for SMEs. When EU Commissioner Máire

Geoghegan-Quinn recently appeared before the European Parliament, I raised the lack of awareness or understanding of how to access this funding by SMEs. I pointed out that, in the North in particular, out of a pool of over 70,000 companies, only 400 invest in R&D with the majority unaware of how to access EU support.

I reiterated my position of encouraging a more joined-up approach on the policy of inno-

It is important that we recognise the contribution of SMEs, which account for more than 98% of Europe’s businesses and provide more than 67% of jobs in the EU

vation, research and development on an allIreland basis.

As a low-performing area, I believe that the North would benefit greatly through increased co-operative planning and joint enterprise between Invest NI and Enterprise Ireland. I would like to see more evidence of the promised simplification of the application process. I would also like to see a strategic role for the Commission in encouraging and facilitating an all-Ireland synergy in this area.

Recognising the benefits of the all-Ireland synergies that exist should allow business and higher education and public research institutes

IN PICTURES

5 Women’s Aid National Freephone Helpline Manager Linda Smith and Women’s Aid Director Margaret Martin launch their annual report. They expressed serious concern about the increasing number of disclosures to Women’s Aid of children being directly abused and exposed to domestic violence

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

Another Europe is possible

to benefit from the strategic framework of Horizon 2020. I would like the Commission to encourage those interactions.

It is important that we recognise the contribution of SMEs, which account for more than 98% of Europe’s businesses and provide more than 67% of jobs in the EU. The future success of SMEs and their role in job creation over the coming years will depend on governments putting in place economic policies that will allow SMEs to flourish and to develop quality products and services. Ease of access and flexibility in EU funding allocations is essential so that SMEs can take full advantage of all financial assistance packages available.

On 25 June I hosted a cross- border delegation representative of Chambers of Commerce, other business organisations and partnerships in the European Parliament in Brussels. The purpose of the delegation was to investigate how best the European Union can promote social and economic development while delivering growth and jobs (particularly along the Border Corridor) by encouraging our local SMEs and independent retail sector to avail of much-needed EU funding streams.

The delegation’s focus was on the areas that I had raised with Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn – the need for simplification as well as streamlining, flexibility and transparency regarding the funding application process.

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

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Joe Barnes, former prisoner and counsellor with Tar Isteach prisoners’ group; Ruth Jamieson from Queen’s University Belfast; Queen’s University Belfast Professor Pete Shirlow; Joe Austin of the Still Imprisoned Project; and former prisoner Dr Féilim Ó hAdhmaill at the Mac Theatre, Belfast, help launch the ground-breaking DVD ‘Beyond the Wire’ which explores the psychiatric and emotional needs of ex-prisoners and the lack of state support for them and their families to an audience including loyalist and republican ex-prisoners

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IRELAND’S FISHING INDUSTRY

The

last hunters of the

ports. He was rocked by what he saw. His subsequent reasoning is easy to fathom. Until he retired to pour pints, he was one of the catchers, officials in all their guises were the stoppers, and a heady mixture of politics and technology, greed and stupidity brought an impasse between the two.

The fish, meanwhile, hadn’t a chance, while Doc’s prognosis is hardly debated. “The catchers will tell you it’s over. We are the last of the hunters.”

What is debated among fishers and those who regulate and study fishing is the impact of technology.

Overkill is a harsh way of describing what happened after the 1990s with ‘super trawlers’,

BY

ROBERT ALLEN ACROSS FROM THE PIER in Howth, as the Harbour Road bends seaward past the Olympic Council of Ireland, a small shop tempts the tourist with ice cream, postcards, sweets, souvenirs, trinkets and paraphernalia. Among these can be found the crew of a small fishing trawler.

What is debated among fishers and those who regulate and study fishing is the impact of technology

Packets of four colourfully dressed, thinbearded caricatures can be taken home for a modest sum and slapped on the fridge as a reminder to buy fish. The irony is that they look nothing like the fishers of today, but it is easier to find toy fishermen in Howth than the real wet-suited variety.

Howth is a seaside anomaly: a port of ghosts and memories, an integral part of the

Fisher people have a great way of expressing themselves. Ask anyone. Fishing and storytelling runs in the blood rich history of the Irish fishing industry, yet another place where they used to go to sea, where they used to tell sea stories, where they used to make a living with a tradition that goes back to the time of the Formorians on populated shores.

Fisher people have a great way of expressing themselves. Ask anyone. Fishing and storytelling runs in the blood. In Carna, Ger Folan pulls up the sleeve of his left arm to demonstrate. “It’s in here,” he says, drawing an index finger along a vein. “It’s not just about the money. Or the job itself. It gets to you. Fishing

5 Those with fishing in their blood insist that the industry has a future people are a big community; like a family.”

Not anymore. That big community is disappearing and, unlike the capricious mackerel, showing signs that it will never return to the shore for love nor money. The job is getting harder by the day with less money for more work.

In Garinish, Michael ‘Mitey’ McNally, a

trawlerman out of Castletownbere like his friend Richard ‘Doc’ Murphy for countless years, is asking his son Cormac what he wants to be when he grows up. “I can’t be fishing ‘cause all the fish is caught,” Cormac says, a sentiment echoed by Doc in his pub in Allihies.

A few years ago, Doc made a tour of the

gil-netting, sonar and the like, but it is a reality now agreed by many including wily old catchers like Doc. “They started rock-hopping. That was the only safe haven the fish had, but when they went in there that was the finish of it. That was the only place the fish could escape to and they took them. When you see baby fish – seed haddock, seed hake, seed cod, seed monk – that’s the end of that fishery and they were getting all kinds of seed fish.’

Over-fishing only tells part of the story.

There is also a cultural element.

Ger Folan is one of a diminishing number of younger fishers still at the game. He started at a young age. “I sold my first box of lobsters for £265; I was only 11. I just loved it. I can’t explain it.” Now he worries for the future of fishing along his stretch of coast in Connemara, where in his lifetime the boats have gradually disappeared, leaving himself and a few others an endangered species. “I don’t know where the next generation is going to come from; children are better educated, there are better opportunities for them.”

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5 Clogherhead trawlers sit in Howth harbour during the renovation of their home port expansive fleets. Kathleen Hayes says this was to Ireland’s detriment and that the numbers shouldn’t have counted.

“The fact that Ireland didn’t have the boats wasn’t relevant. We had the fish on our shores, we owned the waters but as far as the EC was concerned we didn’t want fishing because we weren’t doing the fishing as we were landing 10 boxes compared to the 20 by the French and the 30 by the Spaniards. The French and Spanish wanted it, they needed it and they showed they were getting it on paper. That’s why today we’ve had such a hard battle to fight for quotas. It’s only now we are showing what we are catching, it’s only now that we can compete.”

She is also cognisant of a terrible fact that has done more to damage the industry than anything else, as the consequence of a repressive colonial past and the negative impact foreign rule has had on an ancient maritime culture.

“We never took fishing seriously because we didn’t eat fish. We weren’t a food country like France because of our history and our famines. Sure, fish was the poor man’s diet.

My own kids, they eat fish, but my God the amount of people that don’t eat it!

“If you go to the south of France, you walk along the pier and the boats come in, huge

5 Hunter: Richard ‘Doc’ Murphy

5 Hoping: David Price Although he has his own small boat, he is restricted by what he can catch and limited by his choice of trawler berths. “The trawlers in Rossaveal are half-Polish, Ukraine and the like and don’t take local lads. You’d look out there on a summer evening and it would be like a small city, all the French lads and Spanish boats.”

For him and many other fishers working the coastline, it’s all about small boats and pots, and large cages for keeping the fish – scallops in the spring, oysters in the autumn, crabs, lobsters and shrimps throughout the year.

“If you don’t go out you don’t get paid.

Three or four different buyers come here every month and buy from the pier on a set date with set prices. It fluctuates, goes down

‘Nobody wanted the Fisheries Minister’s job and there was total ignorance to it. I really think at the time they went into the EC they had no idea what they were giving away’ a lot in the summertime. In the wintertime, a box of lobsters would fetch double what you’d get in the summertime.”

It is Ger Folan’s honest opinion that as long as there’s a sea and fish in it, people will go fishing. The industry may be in crisis, with fewer boats, longer trips, strict quotas, oppressive laws, fuel increases, elusive fish, irrational conservation and quota mismanagement, but it is not dead. Those with fishing in their blood insist that the industry has a

‘We never took fishing seriously because we didn’t eat fish. We weren’t a food country like France because of our history and our famines’ 5 A pot payment docket in the ‘Good Old Days’ future, despite the incongruity that still exists where Irish fishers are prohibited from landing more than 4% of the EU’s quota.

Kathleen Hayes, a trawler skipper out of Ring before she took full-time to motherhood, advocates a change in the politics of fishing that will benefit Irish fishers instead of treating them like criminals. For more than a decade she has been imploring fishery ministers to take back from the EU what their naive counterparts gave away when Ireland joined the European Community in 1973.

“Nobody wanted the Fisheries Minister’s job; nobody wanted it and there was total ignorance to it. I really think at the time they went into the EC they had no idea what they were giving away.”

Historically, she is correct but it could have been very different had the 1920s not been so fractious. A carefully-structured policy aimed at developing Irish fisheries was high on the

political agenda of the new state. Michael Collins, who had grown up on a farm not far from the sea, at Woodfield between Clonakilty and Rosscarbery in west Cork, knew how important fishing was to the wellbeing of the people. He believed the sea’s rich harvest could energise coastal communities and stimulate an industry that would benefit the emerging nation after centuries of prohibitive laws. On 11 March 1921, during a Dáil debate on a report by the Fisheries Department, Michael Collins, as Minister for Finance, reluctantly admitted that fisheries was beyond the means of the state. Policy and intricate planning for the indigenous fisheries industry would have to be put on the long finger. It stayed there.

Five decades later, when the time came for quotas to be dished out, the French and Spanish argued that their slice should reflect the amount of fish being landed by their

THE INDUSTRY MAY BE IN CRISIS BUT IT IS NOT DEAD

big boats, they tie up alongside the pier and they sell their fish, and there’s all these fabulous restaurants where you can buy cuttle fish and squid and whatever. In Ireland we can’t do that. We have no fish culture, none whatsoever, and it is so sad.’

Back in Allihies, in Doc’s pub, Mitey tells a joke. The lads have been out in the sound fishing for mackerel. A neighbour who is not in the habit of working without reward tells them it was all for nothing. Anthony ‘Batt’ O’Sullivan, a persistent pot man like Folan, retorts that they were out for therapy. The neighbour thinks for a moment. “And what kind of fish is that?”

Up in Howth, David Doyle, a former crabber, is using his experience to take tourists out sea angling. Beshoff’s, on West Pier, is thriving as a wholesale fish merchant and prawn fisher David Price is hoping he is not one of the last of the hunters.

Robert Allen’s book Mackerel and Potatoes: Being and Nothing at Sea, will be out soon.

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Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown, County Kildare, Sunday 23rd June 2013

PHOTOS BY MARK MOLONEY

5 Mary Caraher presents members of the O'Neill & Allsopp MFB with the Fergal Caraher Memorial Trophy for best band. The award is named after Mary’s son, Fergal, who was gunned down by British troops in 1990

5 Members of the 70eme Demi-Brigade d’Infanterie de Ligne re-enactment group show how Wolfe Tone's French forces would have looked in 1798

5 Gerry Adams with Gerry and Lily Fitzpatrick

5 Members of the crowd listen to main speaker Pearse Doherty

5 Mary Lou McDonald TD on the march with her husband Martin and children Gerard and Iseult

5 The Spirit of Freedom Republican Flute Band, Derry, march through Sallins

5 New Republic – Stronger Together

5 Pearse Doherty TD delivers the main oration at Bodenstown – for more see www.anphoblacht.com

5 Nicola King presents Ciara Quinlan of the Carrick-on-Suir RFB with the Joe Cahill trophy awarded for best presented band

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July / Iúil 29

I nDíl Chuimhne 1 July 1980: Volunteer Terence O’NEILL, 2nd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 2 July 1974: Volunteer Patrick TEER, Long Kesh 3 July 1972: Volunteer Denis QUINN, Tyrone Brigade 6 July 1976: Volunteer Thomas KANE, 1st Battalion, Belfast Brigade 7 July 1990: Volunteer Seán BATESON, Long Kesh 7 July 1988: Volunteer Séamus WOODS, Tyrone Brigade 8 July 1970: Volunteer Tommy CAROLAN, Derry Brigade 8 July 1972: Volunteer Julie DOUGAN, Cumann na mBan, Portadown 8 July 1981: Fian John DEMPSEY, Fianna Éireann

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 19th July 2013

“LIFE SPRINGS FROM DEATH AND FROM THE GRAVES OF PATRIOT MEN AND WOMEN SPRING LIVING NATIONS.” Pádraig Mac Piarais 8 July 1981: Volunteer Joe McDONNELL, Long Kesh 9 July 1972: Fian John DOUGAL, Fianna Éireann 13 July 1981: Volunteer Martin HURSON, Long Kesh 13 July 1984: Volunteer William PRICE, Tyrone Brigade 14 July 1972: Volunteer Louis SCULLION, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 15 July 1972: Volunteer James REID, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 16 July 1972: Fian Tobias MOLLOY,

Fianna Éireann 17 July 1976: Volunteer Patrick CANNON, Dublin Brigade 17 July 1976: Volunteer Peter McELCAR, Donegal Brigade 21 July 1972: Volunteer Joseph DOWNEY, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 21 July 1973: Volunteer Alphonsus CUNNINGHAM, South Down Command 21 July 1973: Volunteer Pauline KANE, Cumann na mBan, Newcastle 25 July 1988: Volunteer Brendan

DAVISON, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 27 July 1977: Volunteer Tommy TOLAN, 2nd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 28 July 1972: Volunteer Seamus CASSIDY, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 31 July 1972: Volunteer Seamus BRADLEY, Derry Brigade.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

McGILLIVARY, Paddy. Fond memories of dedicated republican Paddy McGillivary, who passed away

Comhbhrón

All notices should be sent to:

DOHERTY/FULLERTON. Deepest sympathy to the Doherty/Fullerton family on the sad death of Josephine Doherty. From the Fullerton/Mac Lochlainn/O’Hagan Sinn Féin Cumann, Buncrana, County Donegal.

MYERS. Sincere condolences to Paddy Myers on the

death of his brother Tom. From the Gerry Halpenny/ Worthington/ Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

QUIGLEY. Sincere condolences to Jock Quigley on the recent death of his brother Jimmy. From the Gerry Halpenny/ Worthington/ Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

notices@anphoblacht.com at least 14 days in advance of publication date. There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón etc.

» Imeachtaí » Events 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.

BOOK

Exiled – The story of one man’s struggle Exiled - 40 Years an Exile, A Long Time Away from Kith and Kin

By Thomas Anthony McNulty Available from Sinn Féin Bookshop www.sinnfeinbookshop.com and tmnpublications@gmail.com €20 plus postage REVIEWED BY PEADAR WHELAN IN Tom McNulty’s recently-published book we can clearly affirm the adage that the personal is political.

The actions of the Orange state, its discrimination and sectarianism, defined the lives of many thousands of nationalists, leading them to resistance, imprisonment and, on occasion, death.

In Tom’s case he ended up an exile, living away from his County Tyrone home.

Like so many Northern republicans, Tom McNulty was politicised by the Civil Rights campaign of the late 1960s which was answered by the pogroms of 1969 and unionist terror.

His account of those times is a reminder that the eviction of the Gildernew family from a council house in Caledon, County Tyrone, and the first Civil Rights march from Coalisland to Dungannon were seminal experiences that launched Tom on his lifepath of activism.

“Suddenly, violence erupted and for the first time in my life I saw naked sectarianism in the eyes of another human being. The hatred was in the

in May 2012. Missed by all who knew him in Cabra, Dublin.

TOOLAN, Terry. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Terry Toolan, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade, murdered

by British state forces on 14 July 1972. Forever in my heart, always on my mind. Remembered with pride and honour by daughter Gemma, Frank, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

TOOLAN, Terry. In proud and loving memory of my dear husband, Volunteer Terry Toolan, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade, murdered by British state forces on 14 July 1972. It has been 41 years since I last kissed you goodbye, since then every day a tear has fallen from my eye. Always loved and missed by wife Doreen, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

eyes of the RUC and it was directed towards us,” says Tom, recalling the brutality of the RUC as they prevented the march entering Dungannon town centre.

The unionist response to the mod-

‘If I had a son or daughter of 18 years of age I would not let them get involved in a military struggle in the Six Counties. I would tell them to join the political struggle if they want to get rid of partition’

est demands for civil rights set the stage for 30 years of armed conflict.

Tom’s own journey led him to prison in the North as well as seeing him become acquainted with Mountjoy and Portlaoise prisons in the 26 Counties.

A brother, Joe, was later imprisoned in the H-Blocks, facing the brutality of the criminalisation regime and the bigotry of unionist prison warders.

While Tom’s experience influenced his activism, he realises that armed struggle has had its day.

He is committed to the Peace Process and says: “If I had a son or daughter of 18 years of age I would not let them get involved in a military struggle in the Six Counties. I think it is futile and therefore I have no right to send them out to fight. I would tell them to join the political struggle if they want to get rid of partition.”

It is unquestionably refreshing to read an account of struggle from ‘an ordinary activist’ and Tom acknowledges the contribution of ordinary people, “the unknown people who must forever remain anonymous”.

But the war hasn’t ended for everyone and the recent arrests of Mickey Burns in Belfast and John Downey charged in London, tells us that those British securocrats who have been consistent opponents of the Peace Process continue to work to undermine it.

When there is no hierarchy of victims and when all sides have commited to a genuine process of truth and reconciliation, then we might all be free to tell our stories. That day has not yet arrived.

Imeachtaí » 4th Annual Sinn Féin Summer School

Mills Inn, Baile Mhúirne, Co Cork. Friday & Saturday, 28 & 29 June. Book by contacting DJ O’Driscoll at 087 743 5064 or mailto: djod65@gmail.com or see www.anphoblacht.com

Annual Michael J Marren Commemoration Sunday 7 July 3pm. Mount Irwin Cemetery, Gurteen, County Sligo, (Signposted on Gurteen/Tubbercurry Road).

Speaker: Councillor Seán MacManus. Social later in Donegan’s Pub, Ballaghdereen Road, Gurteen.

All welcome

Annual Patrick Cannon Commemoration 2pm Saturday 13 July.

Meet: Northern Cross (Hilton), Malahide Road, Dublin. Parade to Balgriffin Cemetery. Main speaker: Cllr Noel Harrington

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BETWEEN THE POSTS

30 July / Iúil 2013

THE

www.anphoblacht.com

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

GAELIC ‘GAME DRAIN’ MUST BE HALTED THERE WAS SOMETHING about the smiling faces in the photograph that belied a troubling tale. The picture itself was unimpressive. It was a band of young brothers sporting their Mayo football shirts. In an era of unprecedented choice in replica sportswear, it’s heartening to see young people choosing their county Gaelic shirt. So it wasn’t what they were wearing that played on the mind. It was where they were wearing it.

An accompanying story explained how the boys in the photo have relocated to Germany with their parents.

The family from Mayo moved there in the last year because the father lost his job and livelihood. They were left with no choice but to leave Ireland to make a living.

Hundreds of young Irish people turning out to championship matches this summer in their county colours, will not be in Ireland this time next year. It’s not free choice: it’s enforced economic exile. What’s worse, the people responsible for denying them the right of a prosperous life in Ireland appear to be unashamed of what they’ve done and are doing.

It is being widely reported that emigration has reached levels not seen since An Gorta Mór. More than 200 people a day left Ireland during 2012.

87,000 people left Ireland last year, the majority being Irish nationals; 40,000 of these emigrants were under 25 years old, the age group Gaelic games depends upon for development and the future.

Precisely what this means for Gaelic games is hard to predict.

But the absence of reliable statistics doesn’t disguise the real impact. Every county is being affected. Writing in a local newspaper in Kilkenny earlier this year, former GAA President Nickey Brennan said: “There is hardly a club in Kilkenny that has not been impacted by the scourge of emigration. For many it is now a case of survival in a particular grade rather than dreaming of championship success.”

The Leitrim Observer reported that Gaelic clubs have lost more than 100 players to emigration during 2012. Last year’s senior county champions, Melvin Gaels, lost half a dozen players to emigration. The county senior football team that beat Sligo in the 2011

The Leitrim Observer reported that Gaelic clubs have lost more than 100 players to emigration during 2012 championship struggled to regain momentum when it was depleted by 14 players for the same reasons.

Although the GAA tracks transfers of players from one club to another, nationally and internationally, it fails to detect those players who leave to go abroad but don’t or can’t register elsewhere.

To the advantage of Donegal football, formidable full-back Eamon McGee came home from London and

has played a vital part in the advance of Tír Conaill. However, Antrim will have to try and restore county pride without the help of Cargin player James Laverty, who has had his transfer to San Francisco approved. County managers have become accustomed to some flux in the make-up of a squad and the competition with other sports but there is little doubt now that the decimation of the Irish economy is leading to a devastation of the fabric of

many local communities, especially in rural Ireland.

It is almost two years since the Tyrone Chairperson Ciarán McLaughlin warned of the dire implications of emigration for local club structures.

Recently, Cumann Luthchleas Gael appointed former President Joe McDonagh to head a working group to investigate depopulation of rural areas and methods to ameliorate the effects of forced migration.

The decimation of the Irish economy is leading to a devastation of the fabric of many local communities, especially in rural Ireland

This is a promising development.

But to sustain any rescue plan for local communities and clubs, the GAA needs to challenge societal attitudes.

Some time ago, a friend of mine enjoyed an evening in influential company in Phoenix Park. The after-dinner conversation turned to the effects of emigration. A consensus at the table (which didn’t include my friend), was that emigration is a safety valve for Irish society. By this thinking, we don’t have enough jobs to go around and, in any case, Irish influence extends through the emigration of the next generation.

Those who view Ireland’s greatest export as our youth have no vision for this country’s future, never mind the development of Gaelic games. The GAA can play a part in challenging attitudes and policies that condemn thousands of members of the association to a life far from home.

None of this detracts from the achievement of the 33rd county in this year’s championship. The defeat of Sligo by London’s 14-man team was The Exiles’ first victory in the Connacht championship since 1977.

A long London run in this year’s championship would be a good thing.

But those who champion this year’s ‘Gathering’ would do well to reflect on the scattering of Gaels that preceded it – and still goes on unchecked

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www.anphoblacht.com

July / Iúil 2013 31

Can you hear the people sing?

WITH THE WEATHER indifferent to the best-planned holidays, the TV becomes our guilty fallback in what passes for the summer months in Ireland. What if you could put those wet days to commendable use watching the most important political films of our time? Even if it’s sunny, it can be good fun to deepen your political wisdom, spending a few hours where good momentarily triumphs.

The criteria for this list are firstly that there are no

Three Days of the Condor 1975

10

ROBBIE SMYTH’S

documentaries – they are too easy to pick and constitute another category. I’m excluding films about Ireland as this definitely will be a follow-up article.

Also, no box sets or made-for-TV productions like The

TOP TEN POLITICAL FILMS Land and Freedom

1995

West Wing, House of Cards or Borgen. After that, the following selections have been based solely on the empirical data of personal whimsy.

Read on and email me at editor@anphoblacht.com to disagree if you dare.

6

Based on the first volume of Che Guevara’s published diaries, this inspiring film is a call to political activism and a great lead into Che 1 and 2, which deal with the Cuban revolution and his Bolivian diaries.

The ongoing exposure of large-scale covert surveillance and intelligence espionage in the mainstream media makes this Sydney Pollack-directed film starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway all the more watchable today. I like the closing scenes where whistle-blower Redford is outside the New York Times head office. Way better than State of Play (2009).

Under Fire 1983

9

There had to be one Central or South American conflict film included. Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986) was a contender but was beaten by Under Fire (1983), starring Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman. It tells the story of war correspondents moving between conflicts and the moral quandaries they encounter reporting on the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, and references the murder of ABC news reporter Bill Stewart with his interpreter, Juan Espinosa.

The Manchurian Candidate 1963 & 2004

Many of Ken Loach’s films could have made the list, with The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) an obligatory choice for our Irish list later. Land and Freedom, based loosely on George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, narrates the story of a young participant in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Land and Freedom stands the test of time and may make you book that weekend in Barcelona.

Matewan 1987

Good Night and Good Luck 2005

2

Directed and co-written by George Clooney, this film tells the story of how Ed Morrow and his producer, Fred Friendly, took a stand against the communist witch-hunt of McCarthyism in 1950s USA. It shows how it is possible to make the hard choices and stand up for what you believe in.

5

John Sayles’s films Brother From Another Planet (1984) and Silver City (2004) were contenders but his tale of the 1920s West Virginia coal-mining strikes wins the day.

8

Jonathan Demme’s 2004 reboot of this Cold War original was the all the more believable as this time the incoming Vice-President of the US is under the control of global conglomerate companies who want the US-led wars in the Middle East to continue. More chilling than Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

Bulworth 1998

3

The Motorcycle Diaries 2004

Les Misérables 2012

7

There are many US politician/election films to consider, including Frank Capra’s Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939, starring James Stewart), Robert Redford in The Candidate (1972), the writer-director Tom Robbins’s Bob Roberts (1992), and George Clooney’s The Ides of March (2011). Bulworth’s plot of a disillusioned politician who begins to tell the truth is a very watchable yarn. When The New York Times reported in May that that Obama has “talked longingly” of “going Bulworth” it made this film a must-watch.

Persepolis 2007

4 Based on an autobiographical graphic novel telling the story of young women during the Iranian revolution, this cartoon film gives remarkable depth and insight into a state and people who are all too often reported one-dimensionally.

1 Yes, it is two and half hours of singing. Yes, you have to sit through Russell Crowe trying to sing, but this film has everything you need in a political movie: personal and societal injustice, guns, revolution and moral lessons abound.

Watch until you get to Can You Hear the People Sing? I defy you not to be moved.

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anphoblacht AUGUST ISSUE OUT. . . Thursday 31st July 2013 32

WHO KNEW what was going on behind the scenes during the banks crisis in 2008? And why didn’t the authorities know about the Anglo Irish Bank executives’ tape-recorded phone calls – some would say confessions – before the Irish Independent drip-fed them to the public?

Pearse Doherty TD, Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson, said as An Phoblacht goes to press: “A journalist said on the radio this morning that there is a lot more information out there and that he has been listening to these tapes for months. This is unacceptable.

“The Government must stop its mock outrage, establish an inquiry immediately and ensure that all of the relevant information in its hands and in the hands of the media is handed over to the inquiry.

“That is the only appropriate response to this controversy.”

The utter contempt for the taxpayers and citizens is plain to hear in the Anglo Irish Bank chiefs’ tapes.

While these tapes don’t reveal anything that we haven’t already suspected, they are still shocking. They

The utter contempt for the taxpayers and citizens is plain to hear in the Anglo Irish Bank chiefs’ tapes reveal a concerted effort by the most senior executives in Anglo Irish to defraud the Irish state.

Dismissive and coarse language is used to describe how executives from the bank made up a figure of what the bank needed to deal with its ‘liquidity’ issue, knowing that they didn’t have a ‘liquidity’ problem but a much bigger problem and it would cost much more to fix.

The Central Bank was given a made-up figure of €7billion so the bank could reel the state in and make them interested investors (“Have skin in the game” was the saying used). Then, when the real figures could no longer be hidden, the state would have to step in to protect its original investment, the bankers coldly calculated.

This is a crucial point.

It reveals how little the state (in the form of the Central Bank and Government) knew about banking in Ireland in 2008 and how they relied on the information being supplied by essentially conmen in the banking system without ever sending in independent auditors to take stock and protect the taxpayer from catastrophic exposure.

This proves conclusively that an investigation is needed into events surrounding the bank guarantee and subsequently.

ANGLO •

•

Who knew then?

Why we need to know now

5 Sinn Féin protest outside Anglo Irish Bank HQ in June 2010 in opposition to the massive amount of public money being pumped into the toxic bank